


Perfectly Fine

by UnownAspect



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Amity Blight is in the Emperor's Coven, Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Near Future, Out of Character, Rebels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28105476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnownAspect/pseuds/UnownAspect
Summary: Three years ago, Luz Noceda and Eda Clawthorne had a dramatic fight against the emperor. In the end, the Emperor was half dead, Eda was captured and Luz was banished back to the human realm.But rumor has it that somehow, impossibly, She's back. But she may not like the world she returns to. People change a lot as they grow up, and her friends aren't all where she left them.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Emira Blight/Viney
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60





	1. Bummerland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's my all time low  
> And I just can't wait  
> 'Cause the quicker I'm there  
> Is the quicker I'll say...

Amity scanned the field, and drew a slow, precise x with her foot. “Exactly here. Place the receptors here. You can do whatever with the other equipment. But if this rod is so much as a few inches off place, I will make you wish you were born a human.” She left the construction guild members scared and confused. As quickly as they could, they set out to work.

Amity straightened her blindingly white robe, and started looking for anyone doing anything wrong. She started for a coven member who had barely started pitching a third tent, before she was stopped by a lieutenant grabbing her shoulder. 

She flipped around and glared intensely, hoping to get someone to flinch. “What is it?”  
It was the person who her mother assigned to babysit her. A dull coven guard who never managed to really advance in the system named Seven. They were staring at her with blank confused eyes. Lifting a thumb and pointing at the planning tent, they said “We captured someone snooping around camp. A wild witch, Major.”  
“We capture plenty of those every day, why bring this to me?” Amity looked like she was ready to bite them.  
Seven squinted and opened their mouth dumbly. They tried to find the exact words they needed. “I think I should just show you. He’s right over here. We put him in a planning tent, and magic dampening cuffs on him. But…” They arrived at the tent and the guards pulled back the curtain revealing the prisoner. Amity let out a soft chuckle and finished his sentence. “Edric’s gotten out of tougher situations.”

“Hey Mittens.” Ed waved awkwardly. “What do you think of my new bracelet?” Ed raised his hands in the air.

Amity pushed him into a chair and sat across the table from him. “I think they suit you. Why are you bothering me at work?”

Ed shrugged and started to poke at the cuffs. He wasn’t even trying to hide his attempt at picking it. “I was just in the neighborhood. Thought I’d check in on my fav- second favorite sister. Sorry, but you know me and Emira.” As much as he would have liked to mess with Mittens for a couple hours, Ed knew he had a job to do, and was working out the best way to deliver his message. “How ya been?”

Amity reached across the table to stop him from continuing to try and break out of the handcuffs. “Fine. You want to tell me what you’re actually doing here.”  
“I’m just curious how you’re doing.”  
“Seriously? You know I actually have a job and things to do, right? I can’t just stop any time you want attention.”  
“That’s real nice of you Mittens. By the way, you still haven’t told me how you’re doing. How you’re really doing.”

Amity rolled her eyes and wiped her face in frustration. “Okay, listen. I don’t have time for your… I don’t even know what to call what you do.”

“Shenanigans.”

“Sure. So I’m just gonna call mom and she’ll have someone pick you up and get you out of my hair. If she’s feeling nice, maybe she’ll let you join the coven, but I think she’ll just throw you in the conformatorium and that will probably be good for you. So I hope this little check in was worth it. Bye, Ed. Have fun in prison.”

Amity turned her back on Ed to leave, forcing herself not to pay attention to the pang in her stomach she couldn’t explain. She heard Ed laughing to himself and it made her angrier than she should have let herself. She snapped back at him to find him in her face. She took a shocked step back, before the illusion disappeared, revealing Ed casually crossing his arms, still in his chair. “You wouldn’t be acting like this if you knew what I had to say. She’s back, Amity.” He took a beat to let her absorb that fact. “I hope you’re ready to find the witch you are deep down. All over again.”

Ed reached up and down, pointing his index fingers in opposite directions, before swinging them around, creating a massive blue circle. Amity had barely finished processing what Ed had just said before she realized what he was doing. She drew her purple circles, and launched four abominations at Ed. 

They managed to tear at his cloak, before he vanished into a puff of smoke, leaving behind a brown card with a simple light glyph on it. The guards, as well as Seven, posted outside rushed into the tent to see what was causing the chaos, only to find their leader kneeling beside four melting abominations and clutching a crushed glyph card to her chest. Her eyes burned red, and had started to leak, despite the obvious attempt to stop them.

“Get my staff. I need to go to the palace immediately.” Everyone in the room stared at her, wondering if she was okay, and what to do about it. “Fine! I’ll do it myself!” As she rushed out of the room, Seven noticed the card was stained red. 

\--

Edric appeared outside an old, run down house. You could barely make out the tall gray walls and blue wood, it was covered in vines and flowers and trees. To any ordinary person, it looked abandoned, run down and probably cursed. Not somewhere you’d want to be. Catching his breath, he brushed the dirt of his leggings and the abomination goo off his top. Now that he looked presentable, he looked around to make sure no one could see or hear him and hollered.

“Oh, Doorman!”

Bursting out of a curtain of ivy, a long neck appeared, shrieking, “Hooty, hooty, hoot, hoot! Hi Edric! What’s the password?”

Edric patted the bird-thing on the head and pulled a sack of beef jerky from under his cloak. “Will this work?”

Hooty grabs the sack, flings it in the air, and swallows the whole thing. Edric is equally impressed and alarmed. “Here you go, friend.” He slithers back into the ivy and the door swings open. Edric enters the house, which unlike the outside has been incredibly well maintained.

“Did you do it?” The witch of the house asks, snapping her head up from her work. She was washing dishes and wearing rubber gloves she yanked off and placed on the tap precisely. 

“Easily.” Ed says, hopping onto the couch and kicking his feet up on the table, pushing aside a bowl of candy. They hardly rest for a second before the flower on the table grows a massive root and shoves his feet onto the rug.

“Sorry, I’m trying to keep the place… intact.” The witch calmly places the last plate into a cabinet and walks over to Ed, sitting on the ground across the coffee table. “How is she?”

Ed sighs and looks away from the witch. “Honestly, not great. She seems tired. My guess is she’s killing time until, you know, her light returns.”

The witch grimaces. She picks up a lollipop from the bowl and starts eating at it. “Can you show me?”

“Sure. Give me a sec.” Ed drew a circle and closed his eyes. When he opened them they glowed blue and the wall was lit up with his memory.

The witch watched, considering the footage. She stands up to get a better view. Watching it studiously, she asked him, “You know her best. Do you think it’s for real?”

Ed’s eyes return to normal. “I think so. She was never very good at lying.”

The witch sits down. “Then we know they know as much as we do. Which is nothing. All we have are these cards. I don’t know what to think.”

Ed sits down next to her. “It’s something isn’t it? Who else but Luz would be using these cards? It’s gotta be her.”

“I think you are right.” Willow stands up and bends down to pull a wooden box from under the couch. “These are all we have. It doesn’t tell us much.”

“Except that she’s out there.” Ed gently takes one of the cards out of her hands. No one has ignored the fact that they are covered in blood, yet no one has really talked about it. All it did was confirm what they already knew: if Luz ever returned to the boiling Isles she would immediately be in danger.

Willow stood up and started pacing around the room, reciting her past actions to Ed as if she were coming up with them on the spot. “I’m reaching out to Viney and our man on the inside to find out more, who knows what.”

“Remind me.” Ed added in. “Who is our man on the inside?”

Willow looked over her shoulder and laughed. “I know full well you have no clue who they are. Anyways, we have to start looking for Luz soon, I just don’t know where to even start.”

“Hey. Don’t sweat it, Boss. It’s Luz. The Wild Child. She’ll be fine on her own. You remember her, don’t you? If anyone can survive on her own, it’s Luz Noceda.”

The witch lifts her huge round glasses and wipes away the tears pooling in her eyes. She places the glasses back neatly and fans out the cards she has on the table. “It’s this that worries me so much.” Willow picks up a blood stained card. “If Luz is out there, she’s in trouble. I think we all knew that, but it’s happening now. The coven may not have her now, but we have to find her before anyone else.” 

Ed looks at one of the cards left on the table and presses down the middle of it, so it folds into a ball of light. Willow reaches out to stop him. “Don’t worry boss. Soon enough, we’ll have plenty where those came from.”

\-- 

By the time Ed had left, it was getting late. It was nice, since Willow hadn’t really talked to anyone all week. Except for Hooty and King, and they were starting to feel less like friends and more like voices in her head. She plucked a few leaves from a plant, crushed them and started boiling water. 

Willow sat on the couch and moved King to the side to make space. King woke up and snuggled his way into her coat pocket. Sipping her tea, she struggled to stay awake. She was desperately trying to focus on finding a plan to save Luz. But as hard as she tried to focus, she kept getting distracted, remembering the day that it all started.

She remembered getting to the scene at the very end. It was horrifying and glorious at the same time. It looked like hundreds of emperor’s coven members lying wounded, with just as many watching Eda as she struggled against the magical net. Even in owl form, even captured, they were terrified of her. She saw Amity sobbing into her mother’s chest, as Odalia scanned the battlefield, watching over her soldiers. She never knew why they were there. There were burn marks and loose vines and rubble and at the very center of it all was Emperor Belos, growling softly and frozen, unable to move away from the ice spike driven through his stomach. Willow was pulled out of her trance by Amity, yelling at her, “She’s gone!” and pointing at a burnt briefcase. It was clear. Luz was in the human world and was stuck there. Willow ran over to the box and knelt by it. She pushed the ashes onto each other, as if she could somehow make it whole again and bring her friend back. Soon enough, she stopped trying. She felt four hands on her back, and turned to see Gus and Amity, both equally shocked and upset. They pulled each other into a tight huddle.

Before they could feel all their feelings, they heard a loud growl. They turned to see Eda being pulled away. One of her eyes was blacked out, one was still the same yellow. As Eda was pulled through crowds of confused, scared people, she was able to move around just enough to slip Willow a key and mouth “It’s yours.” to her. Willow turned to Amity to ask her what she should do, only to see her being physically dragged away by Odalia. Gus pulled her sleeve and said, “Do you have a plan?” Willow knew what she felt then because she was feeling it again now. She was completely and utterly clueless. 

Back in today, Willow pushed the banned poster into the wall, and a little pocket appeared out of the wall. It was the best hiding spot she had, and it took her and Gus ages to build it. Pulling the key she always wore around her neck and unlocking the pocket, to remind herself why it was so important she keep fighting. It was so silly, Willow didn’t even know why she kept it. It was just a purple shirt. But whenever she looked at it, she felt something, she could quite explain. The closest she could get to explaining it was hopeful. It was the same feeling she got knowing Luz might be back.

She shoved the shirt away and chastised herself for even thinking about things that happened forever ago. Right now everyone needed her to be present. Willow turns to go upstairs, but hears rustling outside. She decides to ignore it, until she hears panicked hooting.

“Hooty? Are you okay?” Then to answer, the door swung open, revealing a hunched shadow grabbing the owl’s face.

\--

“Seven, I want you to contact Boscha, Skara and Amelia.” Amity stared up at the massive oak doors in front of her, easily four times her height. “They should be prepared to join my task force. If they aren’t, change that.”

“Should I also ask your sister, Major?”

“Keep Emira as far away from this as you possibly can. I don’t want her to screw this up for me.” Seven quickly scrawled that on their notepad. Amity felt prepared to enter the doors. “Have them out here by the time I get out. Do not fail me.” She placed her hands on the door handles and froze. It was like her body was screaming at her to run in the opposite direction. She wished she could be anyone else, anywhere else.

“Major? Would you like me to be out here when you return?”

“Yes Seven. That would be excellent.” She shoved open the doors and walked to the very center of the room. About 30 feet away was the Queen regent of the boiling isles, sitting cross legged and resting her cheek in her arms. She looked bored and disappointed, why, no one knew. “Your Eminence.”

“Amity, Darling, You can just call me Mother.” She sat up straight and looked down at her child. With a quick flick of Odalia’s wrist, Amity stood up. “Now, dear, what brings you in today?

Amity worked desperately to not shuffle her feet. She felt like she was shaking. “Edric, Mom. He appeared at the camp.”

“And do you know why? Anything that insolent brat says can most likely be dismissed out of hand.” Odalia kept her bubbling rage trapped in her stomach although enough seeped through to make everyone in the room terrified. She looked like she was trying to smite Edric with her thought and glare.

“All he said was ‘She’s Back.’ I believe he is referring to Luz Noceda. The Wild Child.” Amity kept her eyes firmly on the ground.

“That girl. She was a horrible influence on you. Can I trust you to handle her, if you were to find her?”

“Yes Mother.”

“Good, because if that boy is telling the truth, and anything with Ms. Noceda must be taken as the highest priority. If there is even a miniscule chance that she has returned to the Isle, we must take it as a certainty. This makes for a lovely opportunity for you to prove yourself to me. It seems reasonable to believe that this is in connection to the energy pulse you are currently overseeing. Can you handle another task?”

“Of course Mother.” Amity rubbed her stomach as subtly as she could manage. “It would be an honor.”

“Wonderful. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you my dear. You have grown into such an impressive young thing. Not like you sister or brother.”

“I’m sure Ed and Em will grow into the witches you want them to be, with time.” 

Odalia snickered and rose out of her chair. “You still have faith in them. I suppose that’s a good thing.” She walked up to Amity and placed a cool kiss on her forehead. “You are dismissed.” She raised her head, and two Emperor’s coven members opened the doors. Amity slowly walked out until the doors closed behind her at which point she immediately keeled over.

“Major? Um.. I hate to interrupt this moment, but-” Amity raised her head to see her little team assembled in front of her. She started working on a solution, a way to get out of this situation without seeming weak.

\--

Willow was far too tired to deal with this right now. She drew a circle as big as she could manage with one arm, and all the vines surrounding the house rumbled. “Listen, I don’t know who you are, but you really messed with the wrong house.”

Suddenly, a card flew out from the shadow, tapping Willow in the gut and exploding into flames. Willow redrew her circle and pulled several vines into the house, wrapping the intruder. Willow started to approach them, before the intruder let out an animalistic howl. It looked like they were inflating, breaking out of the vines, and landing on four legs. More accurately, two legs and two claws.

“Eda?”

“Kid? Plant Kid?” Eda pulled her body back to her normal human form. “You scared me.” Eda immediately started to wobble and almost collapsed. Willow rushed to help up the Owl Lady. She squeezed her arm and poked her stomach to check if she was real. Then she hugged her.  
“Weh! Squeezy!”

“Is that King? I’m surprised he’s lasted this long. I bet he could have bought you something sparkly.’’ While she was saying that, King had already managed to worm his way out of Willow’s jacket into Eda’s hands, onto her face and finally slips into her impressively scraggly hair, where he promptly fell asleep. “I give him points for consistency.” She said, and she laid herself down on the couch

“I can’t believe it.” She placed herself on the arm of the couch furthest from the Owl Lady. “I was terrified. I thought you might be dead.”

Eda pulled herself up with considerable effort. “Nah, kid, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m never gonna die.” her claim might have been more convincing if she wasn’t bleeding out at that exact moment. It was hard to see against her red dress, but she was losing a lot of blood out of her side. Willow started trying to treat it, but it was well out of her league. She wrapped a vine around it to apply pressure, and started to scramble for her scroll.

“Don’t worry about it. I got these bad boys.” She pulled out a brown card with a basic healing glyph drawn on it. It didn’t take Willow long to notice how bloodstained it was. Eda stuck out her tongue and pressed it into herself. 

At first it glowed bright yellow, but then it sparked and the card collapsed into a pile of ashes with no results. “I may be a little bit rusty.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get Viney. She’ll know what to do. You stay here and don’t move. Please.” Willow slipped on her yellow trench coat and pulled a bandanna over her head, hoping not to get recognized. She stepped outside and felt the cool air bite at her. It stung especially badly on her cheeks, where tears were already running down. She had let herself believe that Luz really had returned, but now reality was setting in. She was never going to get her friend back

\--

“Ladies.” Amity raised herself to her feet and rustled her hair out of her face. “As always, my meeting with the regent was illuminating, and awe inspiring.” She folded her arms behind her back as if talking to a legion

Boscha looked like she was barely holding back a wave of mocking laughter “Right. How’s our Majesty queen of bored looks and superiority complexes? ”  
“Don’t say that about the Queen, Boscha!” Skara hushed her friend and searched the room to make sure no one over heard.

“It’s besides the point.” Amity said, hushed her friend with a wave of her hand. We have a new mission, and I want all of you to be a part of it. We think that Luz Noceda, the Wild Child, has returned to the isles. I’m counting on you three to be able to handle this, discreetly and quickly. All of you have your various methods. Work together to find her and bring her in, as soon as possible.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t see how or why you expect us to be any help with this.”

“Isn’t your entire thing that you always have a potion that can do something?” Recently Boscha had gone from being a middle of the pack witch to the nearly undisputed top brewmaster on the isles. She had an uncanny ability to create new, undiscovered potions with effects that no one had managed to obtain. Her laboratory was always locked, so no one knew her secret tactics, and because of this she can sell her works for massive prices.

“Ugh, Fine! But I don’t have to be happy about this.”

“What should I do?”

“Well, Skara. As a Bard, we need you to practice sleep and detection spells.” Skara, to put it politely, was never the most competent witch on the Isles. Still she was effective and she worked well with others. At least she would cancel out Boscha.

“And me?”

“You’re a plant magician, so you’re our powerhouse, in case things get messy in the capture.”

“So what do I do now?” Amity really hadn’t thought this far ahead. She was used to working with these three, which was the real reason she pulled them together. Amelia was an excellent plant witch, maybe the best, except for- She wouldn’t even let herself think the name. But what should she do now?

“Hello? I need plant girl to grow my stuff.” Boscha placed herself in between Amity and everyone else.

“Of course. Do you have a list of ingredients you need right now?’’

“Duh. Let me just pull out the list of ingredients I made for this mission I found out about fourteen seconds ago. I’m going to my lab. Come on you two. We can handle this.” Boscha said the last line to Amity, and it clearly sounded like we don’t need you. Good. Amity had bigger things to worry about. She couldn’t waste time trying to track down one stupid girl.

Thinking about that was the first time she had really stopped and thought about Luz. All of her memories started to flood back in. She couldn’t stop them, and she suddenly had a burning desire to see her, talk to her and feel her. Before she knew what she was doing she started to plot to find her first, and her mind wouldn’t stop picturing those lips.

\--

Willow knelt down and tapped on Viney’s door, although that might be giving it too much credit. It looked more like a trapdoor pasted on side ways.

“Coming!” Through the door, Willow heard several things fall to the ground, what sounded like glass shattering and what she was fairly sure was Viney herself tripping. Eventually, the door swung open to reveal Viney, who had clearly not even been trying to sleep, despite it being well past midnight. “Hey Willow. What’s up?”

“I need your help. I’ve got someone at the shack who needs help.”  
“Gottit. What are we looking at?”  
“Gash in the side.”  
“Awesome. Let me grab some blood moss and puddles and I’ll be right out.” Viney slipped back into her house, knocked over half her earthly possessions and returned with three scrolls, a bag of pretzels, a jar of moss and of course puddles, who had to squeeze out the door. “I’m really glad you showed up, actually.” Viney said, stuffing her face with pretzels as Willow got on her staff, and she pulled puddles out the door. “I wanted to talk about that thingy you asked about.”

Willow cringed at her comment. She forgot how much she invested in Luz’s return being real. “Oh yea. That was a dead end. It turned out it was Eda using the cards.”

“Oh.” Viney looked very confused. “Are you sure about that? Because I had some E-coven members in the clinic today. They mentioned they had gotten bit by a palisman. A cat with a raccoon tail.”

Willow snapped her head around, almost knocking both of them off the staff. “You’re talking about-”

Viney nodded quickly. “-Skitty.”  
\--

Amity landed near her camp and started to walk towards her tent, when she saw two glowing eyes in a bush near her. Normally she would have ignored it completely, but something about it drew her in.

“Come here. I’m not going to hurt you.” She bent down to see the animal better, but it slipped into the trees. Amity followed it, curious. In another shadow she saw it again, clearly the same eyes. She noticed it was incredibly tiny and could make out cat ears in its silhouette. Unsurprising, given how common cats are as palismans.

As if to prove her wrong, the palisman beat it's surprisingly bushy tail against the ground and two crushed pieces of paper rolled out. It backed up a little, and Amity followed it, looking at the pieces. She unfolded them and instantly dropped them and stared up looking for the cat. “Skitty! I know it's you!” But the cat was gone. She looked down at the paper.

Luz-

\- Will you go to grom with me?

Edric was telling the truth.

She’s back.

\--


	2. Sober Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Won't you help me Sober Up?  
> All the big kids they got drunk,  
> And I want to feel something again...

Amity walked out of the woods spinning. Part of her wanted to run back to the woods and look for Luz, and part of her was more scared of that prospect than anything else. Before she even really decided what she wanted she found herself at camp. She dusted off her cape and walked through camp, praying no one would question why she was coming from the middle of the woods, when no one was even supposed to be near them. She nodded to acquaintances, and glared at soldiers and the whole time felt like the only thing keeping her from collapsing to the ground was an invisible string from the heavens.

By the time she reached her tent she felt vaguely like she had been shot. She threw the useless balls of paper onto the floor, letting them roll like they were mice, half expecting them to run away. Without being able to stop herself, she was transported to that moment in her life. She remembered Luz promising to fight for her, like no one else on the Boiling Isles or the human realm would have done for her. She remembers dancing with her, which was actually them fighting Grom. But it wasn’t. In that moment she didn’t even remember the giant terrifying monster in front of her. How was that possible? When Luz held her hand, it felt electric. More than anything she had felt in the past three years. 

“Aw. Ya miss me Blight?” Amity turned around to see Luz standing, leaning against a tent flap.

“Why would I? All you ever did was make my life hell.” Amity shot back. She felt herself grinning, like she had a scheme that was falling into place perfectly.

With a smug grin, Luz responded, “Well, I guess there’s a reason they say it’s hot as hell.” Luz walked right up to her face and grabbed her wrist pulling her in. She felt a shiver run down her spine from the top of her head where Luz was running her hands through her hair. She stared into her eyes, colored like milk chocolate and started to lean in, for one, perfect-

“Major?” Seven burst into the tent. Amity realized she had been lying on the floor, dreaming.

“Dammit Seven, can you knock?”

Seven looked at the tent, which was clearly made of canvas. “I’ll try next time ma’am. Some soldiers returned from the forest reporting seeing a horrifying monster more terrifying than anything they’d ever seen before.”

Amity sighed and sat down on her bed, “Did they describe it?”

“Large, round, big-”

Amity raised her hand to silence Seven. “That’s the Bat Queen, they should have been briefed on her a while ago. We’ll definitely hear from her again.”

Seven noticed Major Blight looked paler than usual. It wasn’t their place to say, but they wondered whether they should say something. They started to back out of the room slowly, continuing to watch their boss.

“Is there something you want to say, Seven?”

Seven snapped back up into military position“No Major, just that you look a little unwell. Should I call for a healer?”

“Do you have a partner, Seven?” Amity was already starting to fall asleep, but she couldn’t quite stop herself.

“I’m very close with my brothers, Major.”

Amity laughed. “ I think you know that’s not what I mean.” Amity laid down and stared at the ceiling. “Can you drop the military thing? It’s starting to freak me out.”

Seven’s entire demeanor changed. They relaxed their shoulder and breathed out. “I know what you mean. Not right now. But you have someone on your mind, don’t you?” 

Amity breathed in deeply and started spilling.“What if, hypothetically, someone you loved, or cared about deeply, was an enemy of the Emperor.” Amity knew exactly what she was hoping to hear. “I mean, obviously, you can’t keep being with them, or loving them. Right?”

“Major, you can do whatever you want. Who’s gonna stop you. I’ll tell you this much. I’m pretty sure, you wanted me to say you can’t, is that right?” Amity nodded. “Well then, pretend I said that. But that was your call. Own it.” They started to leave before turning around. “Should I kill the lights?”

“Please do.” Seven drew a circle and breathed through it, extinguishing the candles in the room and leaving Amity to wonder what they were trying to tell them.

\--

“I call this meeting to order.”

“What meeting?”

“What order?”

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, this was a pretty pathetic set up to call a meeting. The only people here were Ed, Gus, Her and Viney. Eda was also there, but only because she literally could not move from the couch and everyone was in the kitchen. 

Viney was trying very hard to keep her from trying to escape.  
“I have been in prison for three years, if I want to get a cheeseburger, I will get a fucking cheeseburger and how do you plan to stop me?”  
Viney very calmly and weakly placed a single hand on her forehead. “You have about half as much blood as the average person, and you probably have some minor illnesses as well as intense tissue damage. I’m going to leave my hand here, and if you can sit up right now, I’ll let you go.” Eda was not able to sit up. Once Viney was confident Eda wouldn’t try anything for at least a few minutes, she rushed into the kitchen where two mixtures were boiling over a fire.

Viney was an excellent spy. From her position as a healer, she treated a lot of people and heard a lot of rumors. She has enlisted several other healers, as well as other people with a lot of access to information to set up an elaborate and efficient network of spies and listeners

Ed and Gus were standing around the kitchen table playing Hexes hold ‘em. Neither of them knew the rules. Willow is pretty sure they are playing Go fish, and occasionally yelling, “You forgot about the wild card!” before throwing the cards on the table.

Viney panickedly started to scoop the mixture out of one of the cauldrons. “I told you two to tell me when the blue potion started to bubble!”

“Sorry, Viney.” Gus and Ed responded. She was already rushing back to check in on Eda.

Ed looked up at Gus. “Got any fours?”

Ed does a lot of things. As the best illusionist maybe on the Boiling Isles, he is uniquely skilled at getting out of situations, so he tends to work on very targeted missions. Break someone out of jail, steal this thing, deliver a message.

Gus mostly works as a recruiter and trainer. When he got the call to return to the owl house, he had started trying to start a small scale rebellion against some local officials in a town just outside the knee.

Standing in the middle of the owl house living room, Willow clenched her fists, “Everyone, seriously. Luz is back, Eda is back, and my sources say that the Emperor's Coven is spread very thin. Now is a very good time for us to plan a strike against them.”

Hesitantly, Gus and Ed leave their game and sit on the floor, across from Viney and Eda, still struggling, although Eda seems to be mostly making a show of it at this point. Willow stands at the top of the table, where she can see everyone. She starts to make her speech, before cutting herself off.

“Gus, you shouldn’t eat that.” Gus had taken a couple of pieces out of the candy bowl. Willow looked slightly concerned.

“Is this… you know....” Willow nodded, and Gus threw the candy back in the bowl, and continued to stare at it, as if it had just bit him.

Eda started to lift her head and said, “Why can’t the kid have a piece of candy?”

“It’s quitting candy. And stop trying to move.” Viney shook a vial of blue fluid and started applying drops of it to Eda’s most serious cuts.

“Anyways, like I was saying.” Willow grabbed three pieces from the bowl and unwrapped and ate them, as she was speaking, like she wasn’t aware of what she was doing. “We are in, tactically, the best position in three years. Luz and Eda operate not only as very powerful witches, but also as public symbols of what the Wild Witches stand for. Their existence means we may be able to strike a decisive blow against the Regent and the Emperor’s coven soon.”

“No you won't.” Eda said, finally sitting up.

“I told you- You know what, I’m done. Move all you want.” Viney threw her arms up and made her own place on the couch, grumpily slouched on the arm (She has not slept in almost 48 hours, so you’ll have to forgive her).

“I will. Anyways-” Eda coughed up some blood into her hands, right before a sharp pain ran through her body. She returned to lying down, kicking Viney off the couch. Weakly, she coughed out “You don’t have Luz right now. We don’t know where she is, what she is doing and with all the Coven assholes running around, she isn’t a sure thing until she’s in this house. As for me, I don’t have Owlbert. So I’m pretty useless. Why do you think I was using those things?” She pointed at the glyph cards that were still lying on the table. “Right now, you’re pretty much where you were yesterday. Thank you. Goodnight.” And she closed her eyes.

Willow tried to glare at Eda, but she couldn’t see Willow because she was trying not to die. Viney was now making her drink a large glass of water.

“Well, then those are our priorities. We need to free Owlbert and find Luz, and then we’ll be in a better position than we have been for the last few years. Sound better?” Eda raised a thumbs up, which Viney quickly pushed back down. “Okay, Viney what can you tell us about Luz’s location?”

“Luz? Nothing. All I have has to do with her Palisman.” Viney said all this while continuing to handle Eda. She was back in the kitchen, mixing the two potions together while explaining this and stopping Eda from escaping. “I had a Emperor’s coven member in my clinic who got badly scratched up by a group of Palismans in the woods. He said it was a cat carved out of pink wood that had a Raccoon tail. Pretty clearly Skitty, Luz’s Palisman. So what I know for sure is that Skitty is in the woods. I don’t know anything else, although it seems reasonable to assume that Luz is near there.”

“That actually makes a lot of sense.” Added Ed. “If they also think Luz is in the woods, that would explain the massive camp Amity is running right outside the woods.”

Willow nodded and continued. “But we are fairly sure Amity didn’t know about Luz until we told her, so how could they know anything?”

“They didn’t go to the woods to find Luz.” Eda responded to Willow. “I heard something about them detecting a massive power surge out of nowhere. I’d guess they went out there to look into it. The real question is what was the surge.”

Everyone looked at Gus, expecting him to continue the line. Gus pointed at himself, wide eyed and panicked, before he said, “I dunno. Aliens?”

“This Kid.” Eda points at Gus. “I missed this kid.”

Viney finally managed to level out the two potions perfectly, and she offered it to Eda.

“What is that?”  
“Medicine”  
“What does it do?”  
“Heal you.”  
“I don’t want it.”  
“It has painkillers in it.”  
Eda gave the purple mix a suspicious look, before she drank the potion, and immediately fell asleep. Viney stared at her for a solid minute until she felt secure that Eda would not wake up for a long time. Finally, she breathed out and collapsed to the floor. “I have been working on that for seven. Fucking. Hours.” She rested her head against the couch and in seconds was out as cold as Eda.

\--

“Hey Sis. Watcha up to?” Most average people would find it dangerous and maybe even immoral to ride a staff while talking to someone via scroll. But Emira was lying back on the staff, impossibly balanced, as if she was lying in bed.

“Eh, not much really. Mother sent me to take records at some camp near the woods that Amity is messing with. Even after all the work Mittens has put in for her, she still watches her like she is, well, me.”

“Em, the woods are like, the center of everything that’s happening right now.”

“Oh.” Information flows pretty freely from the Blight twins, yet neither of them ever thought to report it to their respective higher ups. “Cool. Where are you at?”

“That much I can’t say.”

“So that isn’t Hooty I hear?” Emira was audibly laughing, and only stopped after almost falling off her broom. Edric was trying to tell Hooty to be quiet using hand gestures, which only made hooty louder. “It’s okay, Ed. My lips are sealed. Who’s there?”

“Gus, King, Hooty, Everyone else is asleep. Except Willow, but she’s upstairs right now.”

“Is Viney there?”

“Aw. That’s cute. You still carrying a torch for her?” Ed said with a little laugh.

Emira knew Ed was joking, but it stung her a little bit. “You’re so funny, Ed. I just want to know how my friend is doing.” Both of them let that lie hang in the air. Eventually Emira bailed them out. “Have you told her I’m not really- you know.”

“I have, Em. It’s Viney. She doesn’t care for the finer details. All she cares about is you’re part of the Coven that kept her in the detention track for years.” Again both of them went quiet. Ed could feel Em’s heart breaking over the phone. All he could do was try to cheer her up right now.

“I bumped into Amity yesterday.”

“Really?” Em sat up on her staff. “Tell me everything.”

“Ok, so I was supposed to deliver her a message, So basically I just ran into camp and broke things until someone arrested me. And because I’m her brother they immediately got Amity. You would have loved the look on her face when she saw me.”

“Describe it to me. Please.” Emira was borderline cackling by the time she got to the camp as Ed told her about him making fun of Amity, and telling her about Amity getting so angry she went fully red. Em rolled off her staff and picked it up. “Talk to you soon, Ed. Love you too.” And with that she hung up on Ed.

Em hadn’t actually been to this particular camp yet, but she could tell it was important, as white pop up tents stretched about as far as she could see. No one had told her what was happening here. In her mother’s words, “It doesn’t concern you. Just do what you are told, quickly and efficiently.” All she had to do was walk around here for a couple hours anyways and report to her mother. Emira started to search for something mildly interesting to document. While she was scanning she saw Boscha, with Skara, who also appeared to be arriving. She tried to break eye contact, but the three eyed witch was already making her way over, dragging her friend along.

“Emira Blight. What are you doing here?”

“The Regent’s bidding.” She responded, giving the universe’s most facetious courtesy. “What are you doing?”

“We are updating Amity on a project.”

“A Secret Project!” Skara interjects.

“Yes. A secret project.” Boscha turns to Skara and gestures at her, somehow communicating to her to take a step back. “What are you actually doing here? Anytime you Blight siblings go anywhere it’s trouble.”

Emira smirked at her, and crossed her arms. “Listen, just because people actually trust us enough to deal with problems doesn’t mean you have to take it out on us. Also, no one tells me anything. All I’m doing is reporting on what’s going on here. Maybe I’ll slip in how rude you’re being.” Emira walked past her, giving her a light check on the shoulder. She walked a few paces, before glancing over her shoulder to watch her usual meltdown. It was odd to see her looking fairly calm, she just pulled Skara away. She saw Emira watching her and rolled her eyes.

Emira wandered aimlessly around for a few minutes, before she decided to go bother Amity. Emira cast a spell to make herself completely silent. She slowly opened the tent door, only to find Amity lying face down on the bed with her head buried in a pillow. Emira crept over until she was right next to her ear and screamed, “Ah!”

“Fuck!” Amity turns around and wildly swings, punching Emira in the nose. “Em? What are you doing here?” Amity tenderly nurses her hand, as Emira barely registered being hit in the face.

“My job. Which looks like more than you can say. What were you doing?”

Amity stands up and clenches both of her fists to her sides. “It’s- It’s none of your business! Just get out!”

“Oh. Oh, I see.” Emira picked up the pink papers her sister had dropped, as Amity glowed hot red. “I remember this. Your first Grom. Someone isn’t telling me something. Actually I think you and mom aren’t telling me a lot of things.’’

Amity crossed to her sister and snatched away her precious note. “Of course we don’t. You’re irresponsible, a slacker and we all know you still talk to Edric. It’s no wonder you’re stuck working odd jobs. You should count yourself lucky you get even that.” Amity turned her back on Emira and stuffed the note into her pocket, where no one else could touch it.

“I’d be a little more careful talking to someone who knows my darkest secret.” Emira said with a smirk. “Being in love with an enemy of the Emperor? I don’t think that’ll go over well with her majesty.”

Amity’s eyes were nearly popping out of her skull. She rushed over to her sister and grabbed her arms. “No, you can’t. Please.”

“I’m joking, I’m joking, calm down.” Emira was shocked by Amity’s intense reaction to that. She wiped the tears out of her sister’s eyes. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid joke.” Amity stared into Em’s eyes, and leaned her head against her sister’s chest. “It’s okay.”

“No. It isn’t. She’s back. Luz is back. Nothing’s okay.” Emira almost wanted to laugh. Even though she knew what Amity was going through, she would have killed for a chance like this, a second chance with a lost love. But she couldn’t blame Amity. She had the worst of their parents conditioning, and it was amazing she even came close to breaking out at all. As frustrating as her siblings could be, this was why Emira stayed in the Emperor’s Coven. She would have loved to go off with the Wild Witches. But she could do more where she was.

Emira gently pushed Amity away from her and smiled at her. For real, this time. She pulled her over to her bed and sat her down. “What’s wrong?” Amity started to respond before Emira cut her off. “And don’t pretend you're fine. People who are fine don’t react like that.”

“I’m scared Em. What if I have to hurt her? I don’t think I could. What if she hates me? Or doesn’t remember me?”

“Slow down, Mittens. You don’t have to do anything, okay? Just take things as they happen. If or when you see Luz, you’ll find out what’s going on then. And then you can deal with it.”

Amity turned up to her sister. “But eventually, I know, I’m going to have to choose. Her or Her.”

Emira instantly knew. Luz or the Regent. She didn’t know what to say. Amity was right. Soon enough, she would be forced to choose one or the other. The only advice Emira felt like she could give was, “But you don’t have to yet.”

An hour later, Emira emerged from the tent. It was getting dark, so she’d have to head back soon. But first, she drew herself a small blue circle and with a sweep of her arm cast the memory on the canvas of the tent, and with another circle, she wiped it away, securing it where she knew only she could access it. Amity would be safe, if it was the only thing she could manage to do.

She mounted the staff and with a final suspicious glance around camp, took off.

\--

“Willow?” Gus tapped on the open door, while he could clearly see Willow through it. She nodded him in and he hopped through. Willow was sitting on the floor, resting her read against the bed and knitting a purple scarf.

Gus plopped himself down next to her. “What have you been up to?”

Willow didn’t even look up from her knitting. “Not much. The world’s been pretty quiet. How was Cap-stone? I hope I didn’t pull you out of anything important.”

“It was fine…” Gus was watching Willow intently trying to see how long it would take for her to actually turn towards him. “Willow are you okay? You seem…” He poked her side, and she turned like she heard an explosion. “Tense.”

“I’m fine. Totally fine.” She squeezed her yarns to her chest. “Why do you even ask?”

“Let me rephrase, um… What’s wrong?”

Willow stared at Gus with murderous intent. She took a single step towards him, before dropping everything she was holding and sitting back on her butt. “I quit.”

“What?”

“I need you to run things...” Willow pulled a sack of things from under the bed and dumped them into Gus’s hands “...While I am away. Can you do that for me?”

“I’m gonna say no, I’m pretty bad at that kind of thing.” Gus places the sack down on the floor and gently pulls a suddenly very frazzled looking Willow to sit on the edge of the bed. “Can you please explain what is going on in your brain? Because I do not understand like, at all.”

“I don’t know. I’ve been feeling very squished lately.” Willow tried to explain herself better. “It’s been a lot of pressure, you know running everything.”

“Well, you don’t have to run everything. And being squished doesn’t have to be such a bad thing, if you like what you’re doing. I felt kind of squished in Capstown, but I met some people and it got a lot more fun. I think we might have a foothold there. When was the last time you left the house?”

“I went to get Viney myself when Eda barged in. And last Tuesday, I stayed over at-” Willow’s eyes bulged as she realized what she was about to say. 

“Whose house?” WIllow just shook her head quickly. “Okay. I actually really need to talk to you about something then. Everyone’s getting worried about the spy. They seem to be so important, but whenever anyone asks about them, you clam up. Who are they?”

“Gus.” She turned and looked at him intently. “I know this seems weird, but you have to trust me when I say this has to stay a secret. I can’t risk them. they’re too valuable to me. I want to tell you, but I’m scared for them. Please trust me.”

Gus thought about what his friend said for a while. “Okay. I trust you. Now, come on. Eda’s playing bells, and Viney is singing along to them. It’s getting weird. You’d love it.” He took her hand and they ran together downstairs.

\--

Amity was just about to drift off when she heard a rustling. “Who is it?” She started to cast a light spell, but the intruder lit up their eyes, in a creepy glow.

“Oh. You again.” Amity stood up and walked over to Skitty. “What do you want from me?”

The palisman started to leave the tent, but turned around and waited until Amity followed her. 

Skitty led the witch deep into the woods. All around them were the sounds of winds and leaves shaking. Amity clutched her robes tightly around herself. Suddenly, the cat stopped, sat, and turned to Amity, as if expecting her to do something.

Amity looked at it confused, but then it started to point up with it’s head. It was hard to see in the dark, but it looked like there was a line in reality. The trees on one side didn’t line up with the trees on the other. She tried to poke at the exact spot with the break, but it pushed back with a static shock. Amity looked to see what the palisman was doing.

It walked under the line, and turned sharply, disappearing. Somehow, there was a window between points in their reality in the middle of the forest. This had to connect to the energy pulse that brought her here. Amity ducked underneath the line and turned to follow the cat.

And there she was, resting on a tree branch. Her hair had gotten longer and she held a long, thick staff in her hands, but it was definitely her. Luz. 

Skitty climbed the tree and hissed quietly to wake her up.

Amity watched as she blinked twice and then looked at Amity. She smiled and hoped down from the tree. Before Amity could react or say anything, she felt herself being crushed in a hug. “I missed you so much, Amity. So much.”

“I- I missed you too Luz.” Amity awkwardly reached around and hugged Luz back. 

Luz jerked back and stared into Amity’s eyes. “Your hair got so floofy. Tell me everything that’s happened since I left. Everything.” Luz tugged Amity over to an overgrown root that stuck out of the ground. She pushed her down on it and sat next to her, cuddling into Amity’s shoulder, causing Amity to tense up.

“Well, you know, maybe I want to hear about the human realm.”

Luz laughed, “Compared to this place? I might as well have been comatose for three years. I was in a boring human school, and I spent ages trying to figure out a way to get back here.”

“How did you do that?”

“I’m not entirely sure the mechanics of it all. Also, it had some kooky effects, like that hole Skitty brought you through. That’s not supposed to be there. I don’t think, at least. Anyways, I’m back now. Isn’t it exciting?”

“Yea. Sure is.” Amity looked down at the dirt, she knew she was just stalling until she had to tell Luz something that wouldn’t go over well.

“What have you been doing?”

“Oh you know… Graduated Hexside, travelled around the demon realm, joined the Emperor's Coven-”

“You what?” Luz scooched back, separating herself from Amity. “They forced us apart! They trapped Eda! How could you do that?”

“Well, sorry.” Amity stood up, brushing the forest dirt off herself. “Some of us actually grow up. We can’t all just go around doing whatever we want forever.”

“Why not?” Luz started to draw a glyph in the dirt. “I was really hoping this wouldn’t be what I came back to.

“Well, it’s what you get. This is me now.” Amity responded, suddenly feeling much, much colder.

“Nah. I don’t think you’re the girl I fell in love with. You should go.” She raised her staff above her head.

“Luz, wait!” Amity stopped the staff with her hand, and slid her hands to touch Luz’s. “Join me. We could run this place in a couple of years. We could do so much good, for everyone. Don’t you trust me?”

“Amity.” Luz took one more look into her eyes. And slowly started to lower her staff, so it touched the ground without activating the glyph. “I’m sorry. Te amo.” She smashed her foot into the ground creating a massive twister. Amity barely had time to realize what was happening before she found herself being gently placed on the ground outside her camp. “No. Not again.” Tears leaked out of her eyes, and her face molded from sadness to anger. With a snarl, she said, “That was a bad move, Noceda. That was a really bad move.”

“Who vas that, Child?”

“Oh. Hey, BQ.” Luz rocked on her heels. “I may have accidentally invited a Coven member over. Is that okay?”

“No! It is not!” The Bat Queen flapped over to Luz. “Are you alright child? Do they hurt you?”

“I just should have realized things obviously changed while I was away.”

“Yes. Time happened. We are no longer same people. You become better than small you. Now come. I feed children now. You are also child.”

As Bat Queen waddled off, Luz turned around to look off in the direction she sent her tornado. “I don’t feel better than small me.” 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope ya liked it!


	3. Bet on You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We could stay the night  
> But we'd only lose  
> After all the hands we've been dealt  
> I'd still bet on you...

Luz awoke to Skitty hissing in her face. “I’m up, I’m up.” Luz gave her palisman a quick skritch on the head. The palisman rubbed her head against Luz, before running down the tree, and Luz followed, jumping down and sliding on her favorite beanie. The two of them walked into the Bat Queen’s cave. She was boiling a pot of soup on her roof. It smelled like gasoline. Actually, it might not be soup. Luz decided not to ask too many questions. The Bat Queen took a sip of the liquid and considered it, before throwing “Intro to plant magic 201” into the pot.

The Bat Queen looked down at her (Up? It’s hard to say when they are upside down). “Child, up here. I make soup.” With a powerful flap, Bat Queen flipped herself upside down and floated down. Skitty and BQ’s eyes glowed as they communicated. “Cat tells me that Coven is trying to murder us.”

“Yea.” Luz nodded. “Sorry about that.”

“Not your fault.” BQ waddled out of the cave and took a turn, over to a swirling mass of yellow light. If you squinted, you could make out a faint outline of a forest in slightly darker yellow. Occasionally a little droplet would spit out of the mass, sometimes a little drop would try to escape, before being pulled back, creating little ringlets. “This thing. This is why they are here. You explain how you made it.”

“Right. There wasn’t much too it, honestly. Skitty and I drew matching glyphs. Hers was just in the dirt, but mine was running through a series of neon lights that were being pumped with electricity.” Luz noted BQ’s confused expression. “I had some tubes of light making a spell happen. The energy I was pulling to make the spell happen weakened the barrier between realities, so Skitty’s teleportation spell would work between dimensions. Teleportation requires a huge amount of energy, because it’s folding reality. So we did it twice, folding reality so it would overlap over our glyphs and open a hole in reality. Do you follow so far?”

“I do not follow. I do not care. What is this?” Bat Queen pointed at the mass of light.

“A portal. If you touch it, it’ll send you to a lab in my world. It wasn’t supposed to stay open. Also, the last trip wasn’t great for me, so I wouldn’t recommend it.” Everyone there became very aware of the droplets shooting out of the mass and all took a big step backwards. “I thought it would close behind me though. Reality should heal itself.”

The Bat Queen ignored her comments and waddled uncomfortably close to the portal. “Vell, Miss Emperor wants this blob. She likes anything strange on the isle. She will come for us.” Bat Queen turned anticlimatically and started to go finish her soup.

“Can I ask you something, BQ?”

The Bat Queen turned around. “What is it, Child?”

“I have a friend in the Emperor’s Coven. She is part of that squad that’s coming for us. Do you think she’ll attack me?”

“She works for Miss Emperor?” Luz nodded.  
“She listen to Miss Emperor?” Luz thought for a second before nodding again.  
Bat Queen turned around. She did not want to see Luz’s reaction to what she would say next. “If you let her, she will kill you. Every time.” BQ quickly waddled off so she wouldn’t have to answer any more questions, leaving behind a shocked and worried Luz who was already feeling tears coming for her eyes.

“You don’t think Ami would try and hurt me, do you?” Skitty looked up at Luz and tilted her head. “You’re right. I don’t really know her any more. But the Amity I knew has to be in there, somewhere, right?”

Palismans and their owners have a special connection. It’s like they each own a little land in the other’s mind. They know what each other is thinking and feeling. All Slitty did was hiss and walk away, but Luz knew what she was trying to say.

“Don’t bet your life on it.”

\--

“Major! Can I get a word?” Seven rushed into the conference tent, with a large oak table in the center of it, and at the head of that, Amity. Something about her had changed. She hunched over the table, with her hands to her lips, staring down a map of the forest. She glared at nothing. Something about her was pulsing intensity. Seven had to this moment never been worried about Amity. Now they were.

Without moving, she responded. “Make it quick. I’m very busy.” 

“Some people, major. They want to see you. Your friends, Boscha, Amelia and the other one. They’re confused about the orders.”

“They’ll figure it out. They’re smart girls.” Amity slowly stood up, letting her Coven robes flow down. She suddenly seemed so much taller. “Let’s talk, Captain. Have you got an estimate on how many lost Palismans are under the Bat Queen’s command?”

“Of course.” Seven revealed a thin file of papers. “This is pretty much everything we have on her. We only found out about her army a few years, so it’s pretty scarce. Estimated 1000 Palismans in the forest. 800 in fighting condition.” They laid the file on the table, and Amity scooped it up, and flipped through it, not taking much in.

“It’ll have to do.” Amity tossed it on the table. “Are you going to wear that?’’ Amity squinted at Seven’s robes.

They were fairly scruffy, Seven didn’t change them out very often. They looked at Amity to see if she was serious Amity had never commented on their clothes before. This was weird. Very weird. “I’ll change.”

“Thank you.” She said in a sing-song voice. Seven started to leave. “Wait.” She paused for a really long time. “Do you think we’re ready for this? I- I don’t-” She cut herself off.

“Yea.” They smiled. “You’re ready.”

Amity took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair with a satisfied smile.

\--

After about ten minutes, Seven burst back into the room, wearing a new set of robes that were a little big on them. “They’re here.”

Seven started to leave. “No, no. Stay. I want you here for this.” Seven nodded in response. They placed themselves behind Amity and tried their best to look official. Military brass started to stream in. Amity greeted them, as if she knew them personally.  
“Major Bloodheart, How are the kids?”  
“Colonel Aligheri. I read all about your Veinsville campaign. Very impressive.”  
“Colonel MorningStar. How are you?”  
Seven ran all these people through his head. They were unsure if they had ever heard of them, much less knew details about them. Seven had been running around the Emperor’s coven for nearly a decade now, but these people were totally new to them. They just tried to stare straight ahead and not make eye contact with anyone. 

Eventually eight people sat around the table, with Amity situated at the head. She stood up to speak. 

And she just stood there. Something in her malfunctioned and she couldn’t even start. Suddenly Seven coughed twice, and cleared their throat. “Sorry. Allergies.” Amity stood glaring at them, and then turned back to the rest of the room.

“Gentlemen. I gathered you here to discuss something of the highest importance to the safety and well being of our homes-”

Boscha burst into the tent, holding Amelia and Skara by the wrist. She had dragged both of them from their base at the palace. “Amity, What the f-” 

“Boscha! Good to see you, in this meeting you were not invited to.”

“I need my lab. Skara has a whole sound proof room to practice in. Amelia needs her garden. You cannot pull us out of our home, because you need us for, whatever the fuck it is you’re off power tripping over, and-”

“Okay, then. I have a very crucial meeting with these fine gentlemen that you are interrupting. So… Seven, can you… deal with this?”

“Why don’t we take a walk, real quick?” Seven put on a plastic smile and guided the outraged Boscha and her underlings out of the tent.

“Anyways. Our safety is in danger. Imminent danger. And you have something I need to keep all of us safe. Troops.”

\--

“Hi. How are you?” Seven was very far out of their depth. They were not used to dealing with personal conflict, especially not involving someone like Boscha.

“I’ve been better, I just got kicked out of my office, if you haven’t heard.” Boscha paused, as if to let them process. “I think I also mentioned it the other seven times I’ve tried to get your bosses attention.”

“Yes. I remember.” Seven really hoped it wasn’t painfully obvious how clueless they were here. “Why don’t you remind me what your problem is?”

“You don’t know anything, do you?” Boscha stared them down for forever, as far as Seven could tell. Finally, she just sighed and rubbed her third eye. “Look, both of us know I don’t care what you have to say. Can you get the boss out here to talk to us? Like, now?”

“That meeting is incredibly important to Amity.”

“Fine. Amity is trying to force us to move out of our workspaces. We always work out of the palace, all of us have a setup that we would rather not give up, because Little Miss Nepotism wants us to be closer to her. So, what can we do?”

“Umm… I can't really do much without the Major here. But I think she’ll listen. As long as you make time to talk to her and can come in when she needs you.”

“That’s kind of a crappy deal, buddy.”

“Maybe you can hash something out with Major Blight. But until then, why don’t you wait out here, and I’ll get her out here as soon as possible.” Before anyone could respond, Seven ducked back into the tent.

“Boscha, maybe we should just get packed. It’s not that big a deal, really.” Amelia offered. The red haired girl left her eyes glued on the flaps of the tent.

“Amelia, last time I so much as touched one of the plants in your garden, you tried to beat me over the head with a rake. Now someone asks you to leave it all behind, and you’re okay with it?”

“She’s our leader. Besides… I don’t want to get on her bad side.”

Boscha placed her hands on Amelia’s shoulders. “I really don’t want to leave my lab behind. And if Amity has a problem with any of us, she can take it up with me.” Boscha pulled Skara and Amelia into a huddle, with her arms wrapped around both of them. “I got you guys, okay? Nothing bad is going to come from us standing up for ourselves. We don’t blindly follow orders.” The two of them looked scared, but ready for battle. “And if you want to go home, I mean, go for it.” Neither of them flinched. “Then let's do this.”

\--

30 minutes of intense staring at tent flaps ensued, until a series of old men filed out of the tent, followed by Amity. Upon seeing the three of them, especially Boscha, her face flared up red. “What were you thinking?” Amity got right up in Boscha’s face “You embarrassed me in front of all those people, do you even know who they are? Those are some of the key players in the Emperor’s coven, and you just barged in, like you belonged there!” While she was ranting, Boscha’s face never changed. She just stared back, waiting for her to stop. “What do you want from me? Honestly, because if this is all about having to work out of a camp, that is almost impressively pathetic. Is that what this is about?”

Boscha finally moved, shifting her weight over one leg and smiling, fakely. “Just cause some of us actually do work, and like to have our own spaces, doesn’t make us pathetic. But what would you know, Major?”

Seven, Skara and Amelia all watched this with wide eyes. None of them had the guts to step in yet, but they were all terrified by what was about to happen.

“I have worked so hard to get where I am, you don’t even know. Maybe if instead of whining and crying every time something gets in your way, you actually worked, you’d be where I am. You’ll be here. Be moved in by tonight. If you have a problem, take it up with literally anyone else.”

Amity started to walk away, but she was suddenly cut off, by Skara, letting out a squeak, saying, “This isn’t fair!” Everyone looked at her in shock for a second.

Amity turned her shock into a growl and started to move to Skara, who was backing up without even thinking about it. “What did you say?”

Boscha put out an arm and stopped her. “You know what? You’re right. We should start getting packed. Big day. I would like to know what we’re doing, exactly?”

Amity took a second to cool down, and Seven placed themselves in eye shot, which helped. With a deep breath, the rage left her face and she started to explain, very calmly for someone who looked ready to pummel Skara a second ago. “I happened to discover Luz Noceda is in the woods, and probably has some connection to the energy surge that brought me out here. As my team dedicated to tracking her down, I think it best if we can communicate easier, especially by having you move out here. Thank you.” Amity waited for them to respond. Skara looked like she was trying to say something, but Boscha placed a hand on her stomach.

“Cool” Boscha lightly pulled Amelia and Skara out of the camp, only stopping to give Amity a final suspicious look.

\--

“Okay everyone, I call this meeting to order.”  
“What meeting?”  
“What order?”  
“That wasn’t funny the first time, and it’s even less funny now.”

The Wild Witch leadership gathered once again around the owl house table. They were eating dinner, which Viney had managed to put together with the various ingredients Willow had around the house. Eda was napping upstairs

“Willow, how are you surviving on this crap?”

Willow turned red and smiled oddly. “I eat out a lot.” 

“Well, I guess we're doing breakfast for dinner.” Viney poured out some bowls of cereal and burned up some frozen waffles and set out a pile of suspicious, loose grapes

Willow spread a laminated map of the boiling isles over the table.“So I recently found something out. We now have an exact location of Luz. She’s in the forest, with the Bat Queen.” Willow circled the area with a red marker. “So now we know where we need to target.”

“That’s rough.” Edric grabbed a pink-purple marker. “All of Amity’s people are surrounding that area. Probably not a coincidence.” He drew an Amity with an angry face and sharp teeth.

“Can I ask how you got this information? It didn’t come from me, I know that.” Viney said, while staring at the map. She flicked at Ed’s drawing to knock off a little excess marker. Gus and Ed looked at Willow for her response.

“My spy. They told me what was happening.” Willow responded. As she looked at everyone’s reactions to this everyone looked on a range from unconvinced to doubtful.

“You are absolutely sure they’re trust-worthy, right? If you gave me a name, I could do some checking of them, how they get there stuff. It’d help, I promise.”

Willow shook both her hands and leaned back on the couch, trying to create distance from herself and everyone else. “Off the table. I’m not telling you their identity.”

“Willow, please.” Viney frowned and made puppy-dog eyes at her commander. “For me?”

“Someday, I promise, but not now.”

“Fine. But I’m going to be cautious around these new facts until I know everything.” Viney shook her head before they took a drink of water and went back to talking strategy, ignoring what had just happened. “What do you think about Owlbert? Where are they?”

“The conformatorium, right? Where else would it be?” Ed responded. Willow suddenly made awkward eye contact with Gus, who quickly broke it. It looked like he had something on his mind. She knew that she was using up a lot of trust keeping this name a secret. But she had to. She really had to.

\--

Skara laid back on her friend's desk, messing around on penstagram. Boscha was in her lab coat and glasses intently writing and mumbling at a piece of paper. Skara knew she was the only person who ever saw the inside of this place and she was quite pleased with herself for managing that. Everyone thought Boscha was a genius, and that she sealed off her lab so people couldn’t copy her. In reality, Only she knew that Boscha had made a very simple realization and was exploiting it.

Boscha walked up to a large red wardrobe in the lab and opened it, revealing several crystal balls, the oracle coven’s signature. She pulled one out and placed it next to her cauldron. She collected the rest of her ingredients, including mistletoe, boysenberries, salt and some of her own hair. Finally, she filled the cauldron with water and started brewing.

Once the mistletoe, salt and berries were in she tapped the ball on the side of her cauldron and opened it letting the liquid inside it spill out into the cauldron. “Hey Skara, can you help me with this? I need to grab something.” Skara got off the desk and grabbed a ladle. “Just stir it according to this glyph, and slowly add in a few of these. She indicated the hair.” 

Skara squelched her nose at the hair, but still nodded. As gross as it was, Boscha would have done the same for her. Skara drew the glyph, until Boscha came back with a jar of broken mirror shards. She tapped some in and took over the stirring.  
“How are things going with that guy you were dating?” Boscha asked, paying more attention to the potion

“Him? I don’t even know his name anymore.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“Well, okay, Miss Secret Girlfriend I Don’t Tell Skara Anything About.”

“Eventually, I will introduce you two, but it’s complicated, okay.”

“Sure.” Skara went back to playing around on her phone. No point in arguing with Boscha, she never quits.

Boscha dumped the contents of the cauldron into a tin tray and it bubbled and boiled. She drew two circles, a pink one and a blue one and suddenly the tray started to boil over, letting up a huge puff of steam, which began to show a fight, one between Boscha, Skara and Amelia, versus someone in the forest.

“What’s that?” Skara asked, suspiciously approaching the cloud.

“That is the future. Can you grab a camera from somewhere? I should film this.” Once Skara left, Boscha looked closely at the scene being played before her. Boscha watched as someone she could only assume was Luz struggled against the three of them. She watched her exact movements, looking and noticing every detail. “Luz Noceda, you have no clue what’s coming for you.”

\--

Viney and Puddles landed outside her apartment, and immediately noticed a silhouette in the shadows, someone who clearly thought they were better at hiding than they actually were. 

“Just come over here Emira. I already see you.” Emira appeared out of the shadows. “Dammit. Follow me, quickly.” Viney hated Emira. She would have loved to tell her to fuck off and go on with her day. But she couldn’t turn down someone in need. And Emira was bleeding out of her mouth.

“I’m sorry, really. I couldn’t go anywhere else.” Viney helped Emira down her stairs and cleared off a table, which she dumped the girl onto. Never responding to anything she said, she did a check up. Emira was bleeding out of a lot of different spots and her arms were bruised up.

Viney grabbed a bottle of green potion off her shelf. “Take off your shirt.”

“Ooh. Kinky.” Emira responded with a strained smile

“Don’t do that to me. Or yourself. Lie back down.” Viney applied the potion to Emira. It was a basic healing potion. “What did you do?”

“I got in a fight.”

“With who?”

“Wild witches. Ow! what the hell!”

“Oops.” Viney responded capping a small bottle of acid she just dumped on a cut.

“I had to. I lied to the empress, so they sent me straight into a losing fight. It’s not my fault, really.” Viney ignored that comment.

“You should be fine after that. Don’t strain yourself and you’ll probably sleep through any alarms, so call anyone who might wonder where you are tomorrow” Viney had covered most of the bruises and cuts with the potion. “You can get going now.”

“Thanks. You know, you treat a lot of Coven members, but you only seem to hate me.” Emira wriggled her shirt back on and started getting ready to leave.

Viney placed the potions back on her shelf, “Most of them are brainwashed by the Coven. They don’t know any better.” She turned around. “You do. You have me and Ed telling you this is wrong, but there you are.”

“Viney, I’m trying, really, OW!” She stumbled and Viney gracefully stopped her from hitting the floor.

“Trying isn’t enough. Not for me, at least.” She helped Emira up. “I can’t let you go home in this state, so you can have the couch. I have tomorrow off, so I’ll get up at like noon. Please be gone by then. For both of us.” Her voice shook the tiniest bit. She was strong, and powerful and brave, but this girl messed with her head. Viney wondered if she actually had to do this.

Emira just nodded, and clutched Viney a little tighter than she needed to.

\--

“Can you guys believe this?” Amelia drifted as close to Boscha and Skara, jumping at every sound as they walked through the forest. “We literally just got settled into camp, and we’re already being sent right into danger.

“Eh. We’ve dealt with worse.” Boscha seemed completely calm. “Want some liquid courage?” She swirled a clear substance in a bottle.

“Is that some bravery potion? It’ll make me calmer?”

“It’s Vodka. It’ll make you drunk.” She took a small swig and winced. “That is very bitter.” Skara laughed and took the flask out of Boscha’s hands, pocketing it.

“I think I’m good.” Amelia was completely unequipped. She was in the plant coven, so she didn’t need to take any equipment, but Boscha had her usually green backpack, filled with a bunch of random potions. Skara had a lute made of black plastic. She hates the sound it makes, but it doesn’t break when she gets hit in a fight. So it’ll have to do.

“I don’t like it here.” Skara absentmindedly looked around the forest. “I feel like we’re being watched all the time.”

“We are.” Boscha pointed up to a tiny leopard. She tried her best to be subtle about it, but it clearly saw that they saw it. It’s eyes glowed neon green and then it ran off. 

“That’s so cute! Also very bad.” Skara observed.

“Alright girls.” Boscha placed her satchel on the ground and pulled out a couple of potions, each a mix of several covered which hadn’t quite mixed together. “We’re made. Get ready.”

Amelia readied a plant monster. Skara dropped back behind the two of them and started to play a song, releasing a red glowing circle around her lute and making her friends glow light pink.

“Thanks Ska.” Boscha stared into the darkness of the forest. She squinted and whispered, so no one could hear her, “Now.”

Two playing cards flew right past her ears and stuck in the dirt behind her. She ducked right under two huge ice spikes that appeared over her head, and returned a potion swirling with red, yellow and black fluid. It burst into smoke, which transformed into a series of explosions.

The three witches cautiously eyed the shadows to see if they had already dealt with their enemy. This was swiftly answered by the sounds of rustling in the trees.

“Thanks for the cover.” Luz jumped out of the trees behind the trio. Amelia directed her plant to turn and attack as Luz sent out a blade of pure energy, slicing the monster in half.

Skara played a harsh, dissonant chord on her lute which launched a sonic wave at Luz, who spun her staff and returned her own sonic blast. For a second both waves were equal, and the forest was still. Then Luz’s wave started to outgrow Skara’s, slowly then all at once, sending everything opposing Luz flying back. She activated her Palisman and slipped her staff into a holster on her back. “Get ‘em girl” She pulled a deck of playing cards out of her pocket. “I’ve got mine.”

Boscha stood up and fished a kelly green potion out of her bag, which she threw at Luz, who responded by pulling a card out of her deck, tapping the potion with it and clutching her fist around it. When she opened her fist, there was nothing there but sparkly pink powder, which she blew into the wind. 

Amelia drew a circle with each hand and trapped Luz under a ton of vines. Amelia started to approach her, but something jumped out of the trees, scratching her face, and breaking her hold on the vines. Skitty landed, hissed at her, and ran back to Luz who was pulling out her staff. Skitty jumped onto the pole and Luz held the staff out. It started to crackle with electricity, which spread to her arms.

That was more than enough for Boscha, who threw a dark red potion between Luz and her friends, and drew a circle, igniting it with a three foot tall flame, creating a barrier between Luz and the others. Luz started to run towards the wall of fire.

“Skara! Little help?” Skara jumped to attention, and played a chord, which boosted Boscha’s power, pushed the flames above the trees and Luz stopped herself as a blast of heat stopped her from charging into fire.

“Any ideas? Anything goes right now.” Both of her allies stared back, panicked and scared. “Okay then.” Boscha started to root around in her backpack. Amelia and Skara hoped she had an ace in the hole potion. Instead she pulled out her scroll. “I’m calling for help.”

“That won’t do anything! She is right there!” Amelia screamed.

“Any better ideas?” When no one responded, she said, “Then I’m calling Amity.” It rang once. It rang again.

“Guys? Something’s happening.” Skara pointed at the top of Boscha’s wall of fire, which had tilted away from them unnaturally.

Suddenly it disappeared, getting sucked into Luz’s staff. She raised it above her head, smashing it the dirt, creating a fissure in the ground and shoving a rock out of the ground into Boscha’s stomach. She flew back into a tree, dropping the scroll.

Amelia sent a small plant monster at Luz, which was destroyed by her smacking it with her staff, with no magic. With a quick blast of power, Amelia was down. 

Skara backed up and sent another sonic blast at Luz, much weaker than the first. Luz didn’t even bother responding with her own this time, just throwing a card which exploded in front of her face, taking out the last of them. Luz strolled up to Boscha and picked up her scroll, slipping it into her pocket. With the end of her staff she drew a small circle.

“Wait, before-” Luz’s circle exploded into a puff of confetti.

“Tell Amity to try harder next time. And send her my love.” Luz walked into the forest. “I’m keeping this.” She said, waving Boscha’s scroll.

\--

Luz checked behind her. She clutched her chest. She was incredibly lucky no one had found her until now, she was barely 100 percent.

Once she was confident she was out of earshot, she opened the scroll. Strangely, Boscha didn’t even have a password. She typed in the first person she could think of. The phone didn’t even ring once before they picked up.

“Willow, it’s Luz.”  
“Luz? You’re back! Why do you have Boscha’s phone?”  
“She just tried to kill me, so I figured, you know, like it was fair game. But yea. I’m home.”

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blep.


	4. Feels so nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You smile like you're hiding something  
> While you're dancing with the radio off  
> As I stand there thinking "this might be love..."

Skara, Amelia and Boscha sat squirming in a tent, across from a very difficult to read Amity. Boscha wasn’t squirming and had a foot placed on each of her friends' feet to keep them from tapping it, which only led them to tap the other one.

“There are three of you right? Because I think I sent you to capture one person, which should be pretty easy considering there are, you know, more of you.”

“She does have a Palisman, Major. That’s a second entity, not a person, entirely.” Seven said hushed into Amity’s shoulder

“Not right now, Seven.”  
“Sorry, Major.” They went back to standing stoically

“You couldn’t actually have expected that to succeed, can you?” Boscha said leaning aggressively into the table separating the two of them. “Sure, there are three of us, but she fought Belos. In his prime. What did you actually expect us to do?”

“I think I made that clear enough yesterday. I told you to bring her to me. Seems simple enough.”

“Then why don’t you do it yourself, if it’s so easy.”

“I have other things going on, I can’t just run off into the forest. That’s why I brought you three into this.”

Boscha stood up, exploding with rage. “You sent us running into the forest. We didn’t have time to prepare, we didn’t have time to rest, we literally moved our stuff here less than a day before you sent us off there. We weren’t ready and we told you. But you didn’t listen. The only reason we are alive is because your girlfriend let us live.”

“She is not my girlfriend.” Amity growled, rising to Boscha’s level. “And you do not get to talk to me like that.”

Boscha curtseyed. “Many apologies, your liege. Next time, I’ll almost die with a smile on my face.” She pulled Skara and Amelia up, who still hadn’t said a word, and had barely managed to process the beginning of this conversation. “We’re leaving now.” Boscha pulled the two of them out of the tent.

Seven walked around the table and sat where Boscha had. “You should really listen to her. She was right, if you ask me.”

Amity sat back down, and started to cool off. “I didn’t, actually, Seven. But go ahead, explain yourself.”

“You just kind of threw them at one of the most powerful people we’ve seen in awhile. I know that you knew Luz wouldn’t kill them, but you can’t be mad that they couldn’t bring her in. She’d be a tough fight for anyone, even all three of them. It sounds like they put up a pretty good fight, if you ask me.”

“It doesn’t really matter to me how well they did.” Amity stood up again and walked around the table until they were next to Seven. “They failed. They failed me, themselves, the empress. Now I’ve heard enough from you. Get out.”

“Major, we need to discuss the-”

“I don’t care. I’ll bring you in here when I need you. Now. Get. Out.” Her words simmered, like they were just on the edge of boiling over. Seven backed out and finally left at a slight trot, leaving Amity alone. She swung at the desk, clearing out a mess of papers. “Fuck them all.”

\--

“So, we are going to do this right now?”

“I’m not sure Viney it, feels kind of like a hit job.”

“Gus, we just have to rip off the band-aid. Both of us know this is eating her alive. Today is going to be rough, but tomorrow will be better and things can only go up. Right, Ed?”

“Yes definitely. I was listening to what you to were talking about.”

“I found it, hoot, hoot.” Hooty had slithered back to Ed and was returning it to Ed. He shrugged at Viney and threw the stick back into the forest and the owl slithered after it again.

“Let’s just do this.” Viney walked up to the Owl house and knocked at the door. When Willow opened it, she looked like she had just gotten up. Her hair was messy and her glasses were crooked. 

She shook her head and started talking. “Come in you guys. We have a lot to talk about.” As far as she knew, today was just a standard planning session for their plans to find Owlbert and Luz. Viney and Gus (And Ed, but not really.) All had plans to force her hand on her darkest secrets.

“Alright everyone, so right now, we have two primary goals: Recovering Luz and Owlbert. We now know exactly where Luz is right now. She is in the middle of the forest. This makes things tricky for us, because that means we have to split up.”

“Why aren’t we just doing this on different days?”

“I’m worried when we go for one, they’ll lock down any Wild Witch assets they have, so we have to do this quickly. I think we should be able to pull off a smash-and-grab, just create enough chaos so we can sneak someone through. We should be able to move through the conformatorium easily enough.”

“I’d flip them” Ed said through a mouthful of waffle and cereal. “There’s way too many people at Amity’s camp for a smash and grab to work. Emira gave me a heads up that she’s re-upping her manpower.” he took a spoon out of his mouth and waved it around dramatically. “If we smash and grab in the conformatorium, Mom will force Amity to help them out, and that’ll create enough chaos to sneak someone into the forest.”

“But I don’t know where exactly she is, so we need something that’s the equivalent of a giant signal flare, like a skirmish.” Willow pushed back. “We know the conformatorium, so while they’re distracted by the fight, we can sneak in easily.”

“Can I ask, are we one hundred percent sure that Luz is in the forest?” Viney asked, abruptly ending that argument. 

“Yes. The spy told me that, and I trust them absolutely”

“But who are they? You won't tell us anything about them. It’s seriously concerning to me. Things are extremely fragile right now and this feels like it would go a long way to helping us feel safer.”

Willow squinted at Viney. “All you need to know is that I trust them. Ed learns things from Em. No one really questions that.”

“I know Emira. I know she doesn’t lie to Ed. I don’t know anything about our spy.”

“Willow, what is stopping you from telling this to us?” Gus said, jumping in on the fight.

“Gus, aren’t you on my side?” Willow stood up and started to back away from her friends.

“I think it would be better for everyone if you’d get this off your chest.”

“You don’t get it, none of you do.” Willow crossed her arms over herself, trying to create a line of defense between her and the others.

“You won’t let us get it.” Viney said, standing up and approaching. “Talk to us please.”

“None of you understand the position I’m in!” Willow screamed, forcing Viney, Gus and Ed to lean back. “I do so much work, so you don’t have to. Everything is riding on my shoulders, and if I want to not talk about her, I shouldn’t have to.”

“So it’s a her?” Viney asked, innocuously. 

Willow stared at her for an uncomfortable long time. Her head started to shake. “No, no.” She clutched her stomach. “Not now.” She covered her mouth before running upstairs.

“Willow, Wait!” Gus turned to Viney. “Now what do we do?”

Viney shrugged. “Just see what she does next. It’s all we can do.”

Both of them stared at the floor, only now realizing how much they had just risked. Willow really did do a lot for the Wild Witches. 

Suddenly the front door swung open. “I found it again! Hoot!”

“Good job, buddy!”

\--

Willow raced upstairs and closed the door behind her. “Damn all those assholes.”

“Kid?” Eda lifted her massive owl-beast head up. “What are you doing here?”  
“Yea!” King declared from his post on top of Eda’s head. “We were having nap time!”

Eda shifted her form to normal, and King slid off her head. “You okay? Do you need one of those squeezy things Luz used to do?”

“Hug?” King offered, climbing into Eda’s hair.

“No, no. I’m fine. Just a little disagreement.” Willow replied, wiping tears out of her eyes

“Okay.” Eda turned back into the owl beast and fell asleep in her nest.

Willow watched as she curled up and walked up to her, patting her on the head. “Actually, can I ask you something?”

“Ugh. Make up your mind.” Eda lifted her head again, and King managed to hold on, like he was riding a mechanical bull.

“What did you do when people didn’t like something you were doing? People you like and trust. When you were in charge?”

“Oh.” Eda tilted her head back and thought. “I mean, I wasn’t really running anything. I was just going it alone. The bad-girl-coven only became a thing after Luz showed up. So if you want to know, she’s the only one who could tell you. Specifically in another room.” And Eda went back to sleep.

Willow slipped out into the hall and dialed up Luz. It didn’t even ring once before she picked up. 

“Hi Willow! How are you!”

“Hey, Luz. I wanted to ask you something.” Willow hadn’t talked to Luz since they managed to connect almost a week ago. Willow wanted to wait until she could actually talk to her friend face to face, otherwise it wouldn’t feel real enough. BUt right now she just needed Luz.

“What is it? I can always probably try to help.” Willow could hear her jumping around through the phone. It made her smile.

“I’ve been keeping a secret. A few actually. And I don’t know how to deal with it. It’s killing people’s trust in me.”

“Hmm.” Willow imagined Luz making a thinky face, which she thought was very funny. “Have you tried telling the truth?”

“Well, that’s not very helpful. I can’t tell them otherwise I would.” Willow made a pouty face, and hoped her voice carried that across.

“No, like, tell them the truth about why you are lying.”

“What? That doesn’t make them any sense.”

“Just be like, here’s why I can’t tell you this. Sorry, but it’s the truth. Boom chicka pow, trust restored.” Luz was clearly punching air and snapping into finger guns. Willow had started laughing out loud.

“Okay, I’ll try that. Love ya. See you soon.” Willow started to hang up, but Luz stopped her.

“Wait, wait, wait. Can I say Hi to people?”

“Uhhh…” Willow mildly panicked, and then remembered what Luz just told her. “I will need a minute. Can I call you back?”

“Yea. See you then.” Willow hung up and prepared herself to talk to the people

\--

“Okay everyone.” Willow descended dramatically down the stairs and placed herself in the eyeshot of everyone. She elected not to ask why Ed was doing a handstand. “I’m going to try and be honest with you.”

Ed fell out of his handstand. “I’m not going to tell you who the spy is. Yet. But I’ll talk about why I’m not telling you about them. Her and I, we’re together.” Willow interlocked her fingers for visual effect. “And if I tell you who she is that’s three more people who could put her at risk. She’s in such a dangerous position, and- and if she got hurt I-” Willow could feel tears welling up in her eyes. She kept trying to finish her sentence and choking up, Again and again. She closed her eyes, and lowered herself to the floor. Finally, she whispered. “I couldn’t forgive myself.”

Through a curtain of water she saw someone kneeling in front of her. They wiped the tears out of her eyes.

Viney said softly, “I understand. You don’t have to keep that kind of thing from us. We’d never betray you. And we will always stand with you.” She lifted Willow up and wrapped her in a tight hug. Willow started to feel more pressure, and it was clear all the others were on board.

“Let’s get back to planning, okay?” Willow said, while wiping her eyes. Finally they surrounded the map and started to push pieces around it.

“Oh wait. One more thing.” Willow pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Boscha’s number. As it was ringing she explained. “Luz stole a phone of a Coven member- Boscha.”

“Hello?”  
“Luz, it’s everyone. Everyone, say hi.”

Willow watched their shocked reactions with a cheeky smile. Everyone was surprised and more than a little angry she was keeping this from them. But for once, Willow didn’t worry. They were there for her.

\--

Willow watched and listened to most of the remaining planning session, but she really didn’t have much to contribute, and didn’t feel like it. It was nice to feel like everything was falling into place around her. Ed acted out his plans, Viney took notes, Gus schemed, Willow was tired. She let her head rest on the couch, and could feel herself slipping out of reality. She tried to force herself to stay awake, but eventually there wasn’t really a point. 

“Guys.” Guys tapped Viney and Ed on the shoulder. “Is she asleep?”

Viney ran her hand in front of Willow’s face. “Looks like it?”

“What should we do?”

“Let her. She looks so peaceful.” Gus placed a blanket over her and tucked her in. In hushed voices, the remaining three started to plan, but it quickly became an argument about things that never mattered.

\--

Amity paced around her office tent. Papers lay scattered around the room, and a couch was upturned. She was feeling pretty nervous.

Seven poked their head in the tent and looked at the destruction, and considered leaving and getting out of this mess as soon as possible. “Seven! You’re here. I want to talk to you about some things.”

“Okay. Major. Are you feeling okay?”

“Perfectly fine.” Amity knelt down and pulled a map off the ground, with parts of the forest circled in red. “This is the area we want to take, but it’s defended by the Bat Queen and of course Luz Noceda. No one here but me is at all capable of taking them on. What is there left to do?”

“Well Major.” Seven sat next to her and started to organize various papers around them. “Your problem is simple. I think, clearly, you are looking for a solution that doesn’t exist. You really can’t trick or outsmart either of them, so all you have is brute force, which presents its own issue-”

“No, no, you’re right.” Amity stood up, sending a couple of papers flying. “I can’t keep dancing around this. It’s time. Time to do what I’ve been thinking about all this time and never committing to. We’re moving on the Palismans. By the end of the week.” Amity smiled bitterly. She looked around the room and processed what a wreck it was. But no matter. Soon enough it would be over. Luz would be hers once again. All that was left to do was hunt her down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cool. Hope you liked it


	5. I lived

“Major! Major!” Seven ran behind Amity as she trudged ahead quickly and assuredly. A slight, ready smirk covered her face. “Are you sure about this? You can’t go back from this.”

“Absolutely, Seven.” Amity placed herself next to a machine. It was made of steel and crossed over itself into the sky up to a large ball on top of it. One of many surrounding the forest

She drew a circle and the metal glowed purple for a second and then faded slowly. “Perfect. Okay, everyone! Man your station!” A legion of Emperor’s coven witches stood at the ready.

One stood behind another one of the seven machines surrounding the woods, Amity yelled. “Ready!” And did the spell again. This time, the other Machines lit up accordingly. Purple strings of light connected through the sky and started to grow. 

The light became a dome, ensnaring the forest. Finally the strings grew until the dome was a massive bubble of purple covering everything.

In the forest, Luz ran to the Bat Queen and shook her awake, “What is that? What does it mean?”

“That means today we fight. Get ready. They are coming.”

\--

“Alright guys. Let's do this.” Standing outside the Owl house, Ed worked to get everyone psyched up. 

“Remember everyone. If you’re worried you might get caught, get out. If you think what you're trying is impossible, get out. Remember to stay safe above all else.”

“We got this Willow. Trust us, we won’t do anything dangerous.” Viney hugged her. “And remember everything you said applies to you as well.” She took Edric and Eda over to Puddles and they climbed on. “Sayonara.” Viney winked and saluted to Willow before taking off.

Gus and Willow watched as they flew to the conformatorium. “Now. Let’s go get our girl.” Gus elbowed Willow and they got on her staff. 

“I’m worried about them.” Willow said uncomfortably.

“I’m worried about us.” Gus responded. “They’ll be fine. You know them.”

“Fine, fine. Let’s just go.” With a deep breath, they took off on her staff to go find Luz.

\--

“I’m sorry, Why am I just finding out about this now?” Sitting high in her throne, The queen stared down at the warden in front of her.

“I have made attempts to deal with it internally, but-”

The queen balled her hand up into a fist. “Shh. These are things that you cannot keep from me. How dare you keep the fact that one of my greatest enemies, the Owl Lady, escaped your grasp. Moreover, you kept it from me.” She rose out of her chair and walked up into the warden’s personal space. “Care to tell me why?”

“I- Um-” He stuttered and backed up, desperately trying to create space she immediately closed. “I didn’t want you to be disappointed, your grace.”

“I suppose that’s understandable.” She responded with a sigh. She began to walk back to her seat.

“So I am forgiven?”

“Hmm.” The Queen drew a circle and turned to cast it on him. He felt himself growing stiffer. Confusion at first only to quickly turn into panic as he realized he was being petrified. “No.”

Emira watched this all unfold. She never liked that old, crocheted ass anyways. Her mother sat down and with a flick of her wrist said, “Take care of that, someone.” Two coven members raced to remove the newly carved statue.

Emira pushed off the pillar she had been keeping to. “Harsh, if you ask me.”

“It had to be done.” With a deep breath she forced out a strained, “Darling.”

“Oh no, believe me, I get it.” Emira raised her hands in the air, just in case her mom had a little leftover temper in her. “So what are you gonna do?”

“I know the rebels are moving on us. I wasn’t worried, but now, the prison is leaderless and holds the Owl Lady’s Palisman, currently the most dangerous thing in the world, outside of whatever is in the forest.” She looked at her daughter, considering her. “I think I’ll send you to defend it. It shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“Mother dear,” Emira back up, and took a measurement of how close she was to the door and how fast she could escape. “Why don’t we just move the palisman?”

Odalia stared at her daughter, not changing her face, continuing to rain judgement on her. “After all.” Emira continued, “If they are going to the prison to find the palisman, then all we have to do is change its spot.”

“Emira, child. The conformatorium is the most secure spot in the Boiling Isles. Where on earth can you think of that would be more suitable.”

“Come on, Ma.” Emira said with a bitter smile. “I know you have some secrets. I am sure to find them is harder than breaking into a prison.”

Odalia tapped the arm of her chair twice. She rose up, casting an imposing shadow over the room. Then she smiled. “I knew there was some reason I was keeping you around.” She walked up to Emira and with their family’s famous smirk, said, “I may have a place.”

\--

“What is that?” Gus tapped Willow’s shoulder while pointing at the massive purple bubble around where they were planning on going.

Willow squinted at it. It didn’t look like anything she had seen before. “I don’t know, I'll ask Luz.” After they landed, she dialed Boscha’s number. Luz picked up quickly, “He- Low”   
“What?”  
“Bubbl- trap- signal- working badly-”  
“I can’t hear you. Can you repeat yourself?”   
“Sig- bork- can’t talk- AAAA”  
“Hello? Luz?” Willow pulled the scroll away from her ear. “It dropped the call. This thing is getting in the way.”

Willow poked the bubble. Clearly they weren’t getting through it. “Can you get us in?”

“I’ll try.” Gus took Willow’s staff and drew a big circle around them. THey blinked out of reality and back in, right outside of the bubble. “Nope. Not working.”

“Okay then, let me try something.” Willow took the staff back and drew a circle around herself. She grew some roots into a bubble around the two of them. “Don’t throw up.”

“Why would I?”

“Last time we did this, you threw up.” Willow’s eyes started to glow and Gus panicked.

“Wait, wait, wait. Just give me a sec to prepare.” The bubble started to rumble. “Willow, stop.”

“Gus, this isn’t me.” They moved to the middle of the bubble, as it started to tear itself apart. Standing back to back, it flopped to the ground to reveal them surrounded by Boscha , Skara and Amelia, each with a circle ready to cast at them.

With a sinister smile, Boscha hissed, “Mornin’ Sunshine.”

\--

“That is a lot of people.” Luz said to BQ. She had flown the two of them up to the point where they could see the approaching army. “At least a hundred.”

“Not enough. Not for you or me, or any of the lost ones.”

Luz looked down at the Bat Queen’s face, from her perch on her head. “Do you know what they are after? Why are they doing this?”

“They are after you. And your portal.” Bat Queen started to lower them to get ready for the fight.

“This is my fault then. Should I turn myself over to them? Would that be easier?”

Bat Queen landed in the dirt and knocked Luz off her by shaking her head. “Miss Emperor is hungry. She will to try to eat us eventually. Now we have something to fight for. You. We do not question it. You do not have to.”

“Okay.” Lu responded unconvinced. She locked Skitty onto her staff and got ready to fight.

It didn’t take the coven members long to get to the Bat Queens hideout. Soon, hundreds of Coven members were on their doorstep. The fight was brutal. Palisman’s are small, but powerful, and have a little magic in themselves. They jumped out of the shadows and scratched, clawed and spat their way to a messy stalemate. A squadron broke off to find Luz, who was waiting for them.

She slipped from tree to tree, stalking the people meant to find her. Finally she was ready. Once they were too far to call for help easily, she launched a simple energy blast at them, scattering them into a wide circle.

Luz jumped down and drew a glyph in the dirt. She scanned around. There were ten of them, only, each had a staff of their own, some with palisman’s, most without. She gave her own staff a quick shake. It felt comfortable in her hands. “Are we just gonna stand here, or…” Several blasts of energy launched at her. She tapped her glyph, launching her into the air on a pillar of ice. She shattered it, and one went down after getting hit by a blast. Nine to go.

She landed right next to her next target, hitting him in the back of the head with her staff. Eight. Another guard swung his staff over her head. She tucked and rolled. From a kneeling position she launched herself faster than anyone could see into his stomach and launched him somewhere in the forest. Seven.

Releasing Skitty, she drew her deck of cards. She sent one into a guard’s face and it landed behind him. Before he could celebrate, it wrapped him into a vine trap. Six. 

Luz was knocked forward by an explosion and fire. She rolled and turned to see another guard standing over. She drew a circle and was about to cast her spell, until she fell over, to reveal skitty biting the back of her neck. “Good girl.” Five to go.

She turned to the remaining guards, but they were running back into the forest. “Odd.” Luz started to chase after them, but then she heard Skitty cry out. She turned around to try and find her, and heard a drip. It sounded thick and mucusy. “Oh no. Where are you? Huh!”

A giant pink and purple pushed past the tops of the trees, holding Skitty in it’s disgusting slimy hands. Luz backed away from it, and started to melt into another abomination on her other side. She scrambled out of it, only to see Amity cradled in its arms. She was surrounded. “Good to see you, Luz. Boscha mentioned you sent your love.”

\--

Puddles landed behind the conformatorium. “Okay, so how close do you have to be to use that glyph?”

Eda looked at the paper in her hand. “This should work from about 100 feet away. If he’s close enough, she’ll just appear right in my hand.”

“Could it work out here?” Viney asked while pulling a bandana over her face.

Eda shrugged and tapped it. It dissolved into ash. They waited for a couple of seconds. Nothing happened. “Okay, looks like we gotta go in.”

Ed pulled his bag off and placed a vial outside the jail wall, and tapped the glyph etched into the vial. He sprinted away.

The vial levitated, shook and then sucked half the wall into itself. “Did it work?” Ed asked from behind Puddles, who promptly bit him. 

“Let’s just go in.”

They started to walk around the conformatorium, hoping to find the actual place where he was. 

“Not to brag, but I’ve spent a lot of time here.” Eda said, smiling widely. This is usually where they keep Palismans.” 

They pushed open the dark metallic doors.

“Sorry.” A voice said. “I don’t think we’re what you’re looking for.”

Eda grumbled and activated a light glyph, revealing Emira and a lot of coven guards. “Oof. Why don’t we just…” She fanned the light out. “There. I’m much more comfortable like that.”

Someone snapped their fingers and the candles in the room lit up. “I can’t let you leave, sorry.” Emira said. Everyone stood around waiting for someone to do something.

“I’m confused, what’s going on here. Is this like some, pregame or something?” Eda asked. No one responded. “Fine. Fine, I’ll do it myself.” Eda threw a fire glyph at the coven members and they jumped back, before responding with a hailstorm of fire and magic.

Running back outside the room, the three witches hid out. “Let’s plan that out next time.” Viney said, clinging to the wall.

“Fair enough.”

Eda shuffled through her deck of cards, Edric created seven duplicates of himself, and Viney cast a spell on herself so she’d be constantly healing. Charging into the room, Eda quickly started to release various Palismans that were trapped in the room, who joined in the fight. She searched all the cells, but couldn’t find Owlbert. “He’s not here!”

“Are you sure?” Viney called, pulling a coven guard off herself. Someone blasted her with fire, leaving her burnt for a couple of seconds, before she healed. “Is she in another place maybe?”

Em overheard this conversation and grimaced. She drew a tiny circle, so no one would notice and create something. She charged Viney and tackled her.

“Get off me, asshole!” Viney, knowing exactly who she was dealing with clocked Emira in the face. As she backed up, Ed zapped her with electricity. 

“Sorry.” 

“We gotta get out of here. Owlbert isn’t here.” Eda grabbed the children and raced for the exit.

“Come on!” Said a guard. “They aren’t out yet!”

Em struggled to her feet and chased after the escapees. She drew a blue circle and popped over to where Viney and Ed were. “Wait.”

“What, Em.” Viney said, clearly annoyed.

“I’m not the one who just- Nevermind. I’m trying Viney. I’m really trying, same as you are, trying to make things better. But I can do that here. We’re the same, really.”

“Em.” Viney said, almost looking sorry for her. “If that were true, I wouldn’t have broken in here.”

“Guys. Can we not do this now?” Ed said, butting in between the two of them.

“Seriously, as much as I am a slut for drama, now feels like a really bad time.” Eda added in.

They all looked at Emira. “I’m not trying to stop you.” The rebels turned to leave.

“Wait.” Viney walked back to Emira. She held up Em’s face, and punched it, leaving a black eye. “It’ll make it look more realistic.” And they left.

“You’re terrifying.” Eda said as they ran out of the jailhouse. “I like it. So what do we do now?”

“Go to the house, I guess.” Viney shoved her hands in her pockets and leaned against puddles. She felt a little piece of paper in there. “This says it’s under the palace. She left it. For us.”

“Do you trust her?” Eda asked. 

Viney thought for a second. Then she nodded. 

“Then let’s go.”

\--

“There’s like twenty places we can’t even step in!” Gus and Willow were very powerful on their own and together they were supposed to be unstoppable. Somehow, they seemed to be losing. It was because of Boscha, she managed to zone off areas, and it made Gus’s ability to move severely out of it, which made illusion magic harder. Willows plants kept getting burnt up by some pesticides in a bottle.

They tried to run off and create space, but a huge plant fell down, blocking their way out. They looked for a way out, but they were pinned. Gus created a shield to block them 

Boscha twirled a potion between her fingers, Skara strummed, creating a circle that could do who knows what, and Amelia summoned another plant monster. “End of the line.” Boscha said with a smirk. She raised a bottle high above her head, and it looked like she was going to throw it at her feet.

“NO!” Willow screamed, and clenched her fists. Without even drawing a circle, her eyes glowed green, bright enough that it was getting hard to see. And then it was dark. Willow was leaning against the tangle of vines she just wrapped everyone in. It felt like it was moving, without anyone controlling it or doing magic.

“What happened?” Boscha yelled. She drew a light spell and the bubble glowed. Boscha saw Willow lying unconscious on the ground, with Gus holding her. “Is she okay? What happened to her?” She started to approach them.

“You stay back. You stay the fuck back.” Gus drew a circle. No one wanted to see if he had some bizarre super power he was about to unleash. The three girls kept their hands in the air.

“Willow? Can you hear me?  
“I see stars. They’re so pretty.”  
“Willow!” Gus took a quick scan of the plant bubble. “What’s going on?”  
Willow blinked twice, and suddenly came back to reality. The vines fell apart, revealing everyone on the other side of the barrier. For a second everyone stared at each other in shock, until Willow broke it, jumping to her feet and yelling, “We have to help Luz!” Then everyone raced into the forest, running and sometimes fighting, but no one ever managed to land much more than a grazer.

\--

“Amity, please.” Luz hadn’t felt this scared, maybe forever. There was something about seeing Amity look so ready to kill her that shook her to her core.

“Please what Luz. I’m not gonna hurt you. I love you.” She delivered it so robotically, it only made Luz more terrified. She kept scanning for a way out. “All you have to do is come with me. And nothing bad has to happen.”

“Amity, what happened to you? The old you would never have done this.” Luz said, so close to tears.

“What happened? Luz, it’s been three years since you have been with me. You want to know what happened? I grew up. This is what grown ups do. They make hard choices. It’s not all fairy tales and Azura books. Believe me, I’d love to go running off with you, but I can’t, I just can’t.”

“Why not?” Luz said. Amity paused. Everything paused

The abomination holding Skitty tightened its grip in response and it felt like it was squeezing at Luz’s own heart. She screamed and fell to her knees, and suddenly the abomination loosened its grip. Luz smiled weakly. “See? You’re still there. The Amity I love is still there.”

Amity placed herself down and walked up to Luz. She was almost close enough to hug her. “I hate you. I hate you so much.” She extended her arm. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Luz stared down at the offering, wondering what she was supposed to do. Suddenly the Bat Queen swooped in, exploding the Abomination holding Skitty. It melted into goo, and Skitty ran over to Luz and perched on her shoulder. “Luz we need your help! We cannot hold out much longer!”

Around the same time, Willow and Gus burst through the trees, destroying Amity’s other abomination with a sharp vine. Willow burst a couple of vines around her and Gus, who added in razor blades, to keep the team chasing them at bay. “Luz! It’s really you!”

“Willow! Gus! I’d hug you but…” Luz indicated everything around them.

“Yea. That’s fair.” Gus yelled.

“Luz! We need help soon.” Bat Queen yelled.

“I got it.” Willow launched a surge of vines, wrapping Amity up and squishing her. Amelia started to build up a plant monster, but Luz threw a fire glyph at it, burning it down faster than she could rebuild it. The three witches did not want a repeat of last time, they raised their hands

Willow walked up to Amity, with fire in her eyes. “Radio your people and tell them to quit. Go back to the hole you crawled out of and don’t mess with me or her ever again.” 

“Or what?” Amity said smugly.

Willow’s only response was to push her hands together, squishing Amity until she felt nauseous and after her point was made, letting her go. Her point was undercut by her scroll going off.

“Shut up.” She said to Boscha who was clearly trying not to burst out laughing.

She only talked for a couple of seconds, before saying in a hushed voice, “It’s Ed they need us.”

“Sounds like you’re in just as much of a crunch as I am.”

Willow stood, glued to the floor. She had no clue what to do. She looked at Gus, who shrugged just as panicked as she was. Finally she looked at Luz, who seemed perfectly calm

“Go. I’ll handle things here.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“Yea. I got this.” Hesitantly, Willow took her staff and Gus and rode off. She kept glancing backwards and almost turning around, but she knew she had to trust in Luz

“It’s me you want, right Amity?”

“And whatever caused the energy surge.”

Luz thought for a second. She knew she had to think fast, but she could end this conflict right now. “BQ, could Amity send a couple of scientists here every now and then?”

“Luz what are you doing?” Bat Queen asked.

“Would you be okay with that?”

“If we didn’t have to fight. And if they leave you alone.”

“Amity, can you deal with that?”

“If I have access, that’s all I need.”

“Okay. Amity, you said things were better in the Emperor’s coven now.” Luz lifted her hands to Amity. “And I trust you. Please call off your troops.”

Amity smiled and radioed a stop signal to the Coven fighters. She delicately placed a pair of handcuffs on Luz. “Thank you Luz.”

“Foolish Human.” Bat Queen growled as She was dragged away. “How did you let her do all this, ah?”

Skitty wagged her tail in response. 

“Well, You try to get her out. Do whatever.” Bat Queen waddled back to her cave. Skitty set into the forest. She was looking for the Owl house.

\--

“This feels like a very bad idea.”   
“That’s because it is a very bad idea.” 

At the edge of the drawbridge, Willow, Gus, Viney, Ed and Eda stood looking forward. “Anyone have a plan to get into the front door?” Willow asked.

“I might have something.” Viney started to mumble and pointed at the castle, seeming to measure it by eye. “Okay, So I think we need to get Eda dead center to summon Owlbert, which is of course...”

“The throne.” Ed responded, realizing how screwed they were

“Yep.”

“So we're screwed. We don’t have a chance. We have to fight through hundreds of coven guards, not to mention, my mom, the empress.”

Viney strolled up to the very edge of the draw bridge. “Pretty much. I think we got this.” She drew a circle in the dirt, and then another littler one inside that one. “I’ve been saving this. Let’s see if it works.”

She pushed down on the floor. She sprouted wings and started to inflate, and then changed into a massive griffin, glowing yellow. She roared, and flapped towards the castle.

“Yep. I’m convinced.” Eda said and followed after her.

Willow created walls and trapped any guards who got in their way.  
Ed and Gus used their illusions to stomp everyone who got even close and create shields to defend them.  
Viney rolled through everyone in her griffin form.  
Eda tagged along. She was waiting to be helpful, and she was close.

Finally they got to the door that separated them from the place they needed to be. “Do you have to glyph?” Viney asked.

“Got it right here.” Eda responded.

“Let's do this.” Ed pushed open the doors, expecting a massive fight, only to find the room empty. “Okay. I’ll take it.”

“Unlikely, my boy.” A voice responded.

“Did anyone else just hear that?” Ed said frantically looking around for the empress.  
“Yep.” Everyone responded getting ready for a fight.

“You don’t have to look.” Ed’s head snapped around. “I’m right here.” The queen appeared right in front of Ed who look a desperate swing at it, revealing it to be an illusion.

“The one thing I’ve always been proud of.” said Odalia, appearing this time in front of all of them, between them and the throne. “Your skills with illusions. However. I’m better.”

A beeping noise could be heard and them Viney screamed. She had three little discs that were emitting green electricity. Ed and Willow ripped them off, but she had already transformed back into her regular self and started trying to heal herself.

Suddenly several different Odalia’s formed out, but they weren’t illusions. They could be felt, and they could fight and do magic. And they surrounded the rebels.

“Me and Gus will get Eda to the throne. You just hold off these clones.” Willow said. She grabbed Eda’s hand and Gus propped up a shield around them, and they started to bull rush the throne.

Ed launched a blast of flames at the clones and watched them melt. “You know, this is pretty cathartic.”

“You disturb me.” Viney responded. she whistled and Puddles burst in, knocking down several clones.

A line of clones got between Eda and the throne, each performed a shield spell, creating a line stopping them. “Guys.” Gus said in a panic. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold this.”

“Eda.” Willow said nervously. “How comfortable are you with high velocities, heights and general danger?”

“Fairly comfortable.” Eda said, knowing full well that described most of her life.

“Okay.” Willow grew a little plant right under Eda. “Gus, lower the shield.” Willow launched Eda into the air, over the clones and onto the throne. She placed down the glyph and summoned her palisman.

“Hoo.”  
“Hey buddy. How you doing?”  
“Hoo Hoo.”  
‘Oh. That’s rough. I can make it better. Wanna create some mayhem?”  
“Hoo” Owlbert nodded. 

Eda pulled her staff out of her hair, and screwed owl bert on top of it. Viney, Gus, Ed and Willow were all starting to be overrun. 

Eda held her staff in her hands staff in front of her and closed her eyes, trying to remember what magic felt like. She felt it flowing through her veins and through her staff. She raised it and drove it into the ground, releasing blinding white light into the room.

When everyone could see again, there were no clones anywhere to be seen. Eda scanned the room, and pointed to a top corner. “I see you.”

The real Odalia grimaced and ran off into some unknown place in the palace. “Alright kids. Let’s go. By the way, where’s Luz?”

\--  
Amity held the chain between Luz’s cuffs as if it were Luz’s hand. Finally Odalia appeared in front of them. She had summoned Amity and Emira and Amity had brought Luz as a showing.

Odalia sat on the throne.

“Wait, you're the emperor now?”

“Well, don’t sound so shocked. And I’m only the regent. Lord Belos is still healing from the wounds you left him with.”

Luz smiled, “Yea. I did that. When I was fifteen.”

“Well, Emira looking at this girl, I am happy to report at least one member of this family isn’t a complete disgrace. Ed is off running around with the wild witches, you can’t even keep a prison secure. But at least Amity proves she is worth something, with this brand new prisoner.” Odalia grimac at Emira. Luz looked over at Amity, who looked equally confused. “At least we have something to show for this awful awful day.”

“Mom, I think we should try and find a place for Luz here. She could be an asset to us.”

“What she is, my dear, is human.” Odalia responded in a calm, menacing tone. She snapped her fingers. “Take her to the conformatorium.”

Amity watched in shock as several guards scrambled to be the one to drag Luz away. When she looked at Luz’s face, she expected to see anger, betrayal, hate. Instead she just looked sad. And disappointed.

“Mom-”

“Queen Regent in this room. I know this is hard, dear, but it is what must be done.” Odalia placed a hand on Amity’s cheek. “She’s a danger to us all. As much as you like your friend, we have to do what is best for everyone. Do you understand, dear?” 

Odalia looked like she was about to continue talking about how it is important to be responsible to society and all that, when someone burst into the room. “Um, your majesty. The thing has happened.”

“What thing?” Odalia asked, irritated, restraining anger.

“The thing.” They responded, gesturing madly. “The thing you told me to tell you whenever it was happening?”

“Right.” She left to take care of the thing. “You two think about the day you’ve had. I have business to attend to.”

Amity watched her leave and turned to talk to Em. “Hey, I was wondering-”

“Mittens.” Em said while wiping her face with her hand. “I have had the worst fucking day ever. I just want to go home, take a hot bath, and pretend I don’t exist.” She looked over at her sister. “Sorry.” She waved her hand around until it made a circle and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Amity left the room a confused mess, which was made worse by who she saw outside.

“Wow. I just saw Luz get dragged away.” Boscha said. “Guess she shouldn’t have trusted you.”

Amity shrugged uncomfortably. “She’s a danger to us all. It had to be done for the greater good.”

“Only person she’s a danger to is your mom. I guess to her that is the greater good.”

Amity looked at Boscha funny. “What are you saying Boscha?”

“What am I saying?” Boscha started to leave to go to her lab. “I’m saying Luz deserves better than someone like you.” And with that she was gone.

Amity watched her walk away. She felt angry at Boscha. How dare she talk to her like that? Who does she think she is? And then she thought about it. And she cried, right there.

\--

“I should not have put that damn owl down here. Hopefully they can’t tell Edalyn what it saw.” Odalia mused to no one as she descended a series of stairs.

“Your majesty, I’m sure it will all be fine.” Odalia ignored this remark. Finally they arrived at the bottom of the steps, where the old emperor lay on a table, with a tube attached to his arm. He was tired and weak, but he was awake.

“Odalia” He said breathily “Where am I?”

Odalia picked up a can of silver dust and shook some into her palm. She carried it far away herself. “I don’t know Belos.” She sprinkled it on his face and neck. “Where do you go when you dream?” He blinked, and realized what was happening. He tried to struggle, but could barely move his arms, they had weakened so much over the years. She pulled the pillow under his head over his head, as if performing surgery. Slowly, terribly, he couldn’t stop himself from falling asleep.

Odalia looked over him. Once she was sure he was asleep, she snapped at the other in the room. “Well. Do what you do best.” She left him and walked back up the stairs as the healer made sure Belos wouldn’t wake up for a very long time.

\--

“I believe you have something of mine.” Boscha leaned against the bars separating her and Luz. She slouched against the wall of her cell, curled into a ball of sadness

Luz shrugged and muttered. “Guards took it.”

“I’ve been through this place enough to know you could very easily have snuck that in.” She stuck out her hand. “Give it.”

Luz reached into her robe and pulled out a scroll she put in Boscha’s hand. “Fine. Take it. I don’t care.”

“Don’t be like that. I’ve got contacts, text messages, pictures, all kinds of things saved on this phone.” She reached into her robe pocket. “Besides. This one works just as well.”

She tossed a cheap scroll into Luz’s arms. It was tough and plasticy, but it already had Willow, Ed and Amity’s numbers loaded into it.

Luz scrolled through it and finally looked up at Boscha, processing what this meant. “Wait, are you-” 

Boscha put a finger to her lips and shushed Luz. She smiled and pushed away from the bars. “I’ll see you real soon, human.” Before she left, she turned and blew Luz a kiss.

\--


	6. Two Queens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Two queens in a king-sized bed  
> There's no mistletoe above our heads  
> But I'll kiss you anyway..."

\-- “Sorry if I’m not your princess. But honestly? I think we can all agree this is far more fun.”--  
Skara kept her eyes jumping from Boscha to Gus. “I think this is maybe not such a good idea.”

“What could go wrong?”

“Amelia?” Skara pleaded. “Don’t you have anything to say, maybe?”

She shrugged. “I don’t care. She's going to do whatever she’ll do.”

“Here he comes. Follow me.” As Gus walked past the little group, Boscha stuck out a foot. Gus tripped and rolled. His books and papers go flying in the air. With a quick twirl and a little illusionary, it all slides neatly back into his arms and he goes off. Enraged, Boscha hisses, “What was that?”

Boscha chased after the kid. “Oh hey Boscha. How’s Grudg-” He was abruptly cut off by being kicked in the shins. “Excuse me for a second.” He delicately placed his books on the ground, then breathed in deeply and howled.

“Ouch, Owie, Owie, oof” He jumped around holding his leg.

“What’s your problem, weirdo?” Boscha growled.

“Currently? My shin hurts.”

“No, I mean- Nevermind.” She shoved him to the ground. “This’ll show you.” She pulled a vial of powder out of her pocket and threw it at him. It exploded, leaving behind a huge puff of smoke surrounding the area.

It cleared to reveal Gus in a purple bubble. “I’m honestly a little confused as to what you plan to accomplish.”

Boscha let out a frustrated shriek. She pulled some loose dust from her pocket, something she had scraped from the bottom of her cauldron. She always kept it, because you never knew what it was capable of.

“Uh oh.” Gus’s bubble popped. “I’d suggest a peaceful summit on this subject.”

Boscha threw the powder. She closed her eyes, and all she heard was a sizzling sound that left her cringing. 

“Bad idea, Boscha.” A quiet, menacing growl responded. Boscha waved the surprising amount of smoke out of her eyes. Suddenly in front of her was Willow Park, hunched over, with a scar on her back shoulder burning bright orange.

With a quick brush of her shoulder she pushed the powder to the floor, where it gave off a hiss. Turning her head and raising her hand, she pulled a fern sitting in the hall into a massive, dripping monster.

Boscha looked around, confident, but only for a second. She had been so sure that Skara and Amelia were behind her, and now where were they?

“Gus! Are you okay?” Willow darted over to the boy who was sitting on the floor by now. He nodded quickly. Willow knelt and hugged him, after placing her plant in between Boscha and them. Not that she could ever fight Willow. Or that Willow would fight her.

Boscha silently watched. Before she could stop herself, she looked around the plant. Seeing Willow in Gus’s face was uncomfortable to her. No one treated her like that. Why not? Was she not special enough? Was she not good enough? She clenched her fist, but before she could even twitch, she was wrapped up tightly by the monster, who dripped yellow goo on her.

“Just cause Luz is gone doesn’t mean you get to push us around.” Willow squeaked. She stood up and fixed her glasses, and pulled Gus up. He pointed at her and widened his eyes. “Tell her, Gus.” She slipped her arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a side hug. “You need to wake up.”

“What?” Boscha responded, confused.

“I said.” Willow responded readjusting her glasses. “You need to wake up.”

“Um...No? This isn’t how this goes.” Boscha said, slightly confused. “You and him walk off and I dramatically stare, confused and just understanding what love is.”

Willow stared back blankly. “I’m supposed to meet with Viney today. And I’m stuck. Wake up, sunshine.”

Blinking slowly, Boscha let warm sun roll into her world. She found a mat of soft, green hair in her face, and her arms pulling the girl in front of her into herself, like she was scared she would disappear. “Stay. For a minute.”

Willow relaxed and sunk into the bed. “Fine. You win. But both of us have to go soon.”

“I don’t want to go into work. I hate everyone there.”  
“You just hate everyone.”  
“I do not. I like you. And they want you dead. Wouldn’t you hate your coworkers if they tried to kill me?”  
“My coworkers do want to kill you.”  
”Well, they don’t know the real me.”  
“No. They don’t.” Willow paused. “Who could hate the real you?”

Boscha let her face grow flush. She buried her face into their hair. Her cheek rubs against something that feels a little different and Willow makes a weird noise. Boscha runs her hand along it. It’s a burn scar. “You still have this? I-” She touched it lightly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Willow reached a hand behind her head and held Boscha’s hand. “That isn’t you anymore. It just reminds me how incredible you’ve become.”

\--

Boscha burst into the castle. She was now ten minutes late for her meeting. With a burnt piece of toast in her mouth and her hair a mess, she threw open the massive doors to the throne room.

“I’m here. Sorry for being late, I had… business to deal with” As she looked at the room of blank irritated faces, she remembered why was always so crabby at work. Slinking into her seat, and ignoring the stares she had earned. It was worth it anyways.

“Now that we can start.” The Regent (Queen) said sharply. “We have to discuss what to do with our most recent acquisition.”

Boscha did a quick scan of the room to figure out what people were thinking. This particular meeting was made up of various, scattered leadership. Called the Emperor's council, Boscha figured it was essentially a way to scrounge clout, because anyone here could claim to have a direct line to the queen. It was made up of a bunch of Coven heads, except the illusion coven leader, a mess of emperor coven leaders that aren't currently feuding with the Queen, a couple of local leaders, friends of the Queen, as well as Amity, Emira and Boscha.

The first place Boscha looked was the Blight kids. Usually they were the most interesting. Today, they both seemed uncomfortable and Amity wouldn’t stop twitching. Emira just looked sad.

Strange. She noted it and went back to paying attention.

“I am of course referring to the Human, Luz Noceda, or as most of you may know her, the Wild Child.” Boscha quickly noted that for many of the people in the room, this was the first they were hearing about this.

“Mother.” Emira said from behind pursed lips. “As we discussed earlier, could we have a moment to discuss this as a family? Because it happens to be somewhat important to this family in particular?” Clearly this was something she was doing for Amity.

Boscha tried to gauge Odalia’s reaction. As much as she didn’t want to do something for her child, she did enjoy making everyone feel excluded. “Fine. Everyone, leave us. Be ready to return.” In the scramble to leave, Boscha took an illusion potion. Hiding as a ghost, she listened in.

“What did you want to discuss, Emira?”  
“Like it or not, we have to acknowledge she is more than just another rebel. She’s Amity’s Ex.” Amity was not speaking.  
“I don’t want to hear this out of you. You don’t get to speak for anyone after your failure at the prison.”  
“I’ll speak for whoever I want. What you are doing is-”  
“Mom.” The other two Blights looked at Amity. “Can I say something?”  
“Go ahead, dear.”  
Amity opened her mouth. She tried to say something, but choked. She started desperately trying to hold back tears, frozen from the effort

“Now you’ve upset your sister.” Odalia and Emira continued to yell at each other. Boscha took a second to walk over to Amity. Even as a ghost, she wanted to help, unlike everyone else in the room. She delicately placed a hand on Amity’s back, careful that it could be mistaken for a rogue breeze, and waited. Even though they couldn’t see her, she glared at the Blights and it made her feel better.  
“Mom.” Amity started again. “I know it will be hard, but I also know it’s for the best. Even though I love Luz, I know it’s irrational. And I’m working on it. I want to be better, for you and the Boiling Isles. You can trust me.” 

Boscha almost said something. Even though she had seen it all before, it was always weird to see how Amity acted around her family versus her peers.

“You see Emira? She’s fine.” Of course she was. That's why she is in tears.  
“If you give me time, I will be able to treat the prisoner, as if she is just another prisoner.” Amity said, sounding confident, even though she was softly shaking. Emira shook her head and sighed.  
“Good because I have a very exciting announcement. Emira, could you… handle this?” Out of will to argue, Emira drew a spell circle and wiping at Amity’s face, cleared it, so she looked fresh, no sign of this spat. “Thank you, dear.”

And she called in the rest of the party, as if nothing had happened.

\-- “I’d scream, but that defeats the point of being unseen.” --

Boscha stared at herself in the mirror. Wearing her Grom dress from last year, she kept changing positions, but it always looked wrong. It felt like her reflection was judging her.

“Boscha, stop that.” Amity said quickly, pulling her away from the mirror. “It’s not going to change, and you don’t have another dress.”

“I know that.” Boscha turned around. “Something just feels off.” She took a quick peek in the mirror, before becoming determined not to look back.

“We change a lot over the year. It’s why most people get a new dress every year.” Amity tapped a touch of make up onto her face. Boscha had noticed that Amity was wearing a new dress, the first time she had swapped it out since the human arrived. She remembered Ms. Blight always wanted her to buy a new one, but Amity stuck with her classic look. Until this year.

“You’re one to talk. This is the first time you’ve ever tried anything new. For Grom, at least.”  
“I thought it was time for a change.”  
“Really? Or did your mom decide it was time for a change.”  
Amity went red. “Well- At least I’m not- Shut up three eyes.”  
“Sorry, I’ll can it. Didn’t think that was a nerve.”

Amity sized herself up in the mirror. She tapped herself up and down, making sure she was just perfect. Suddenly, she made eye contact with herself. Her eyes started to bubble, then pour.

“Oh shit. Um… What’s wrong?” Boscha awkwardly tried to comfort Amity. A lot of hovering and trying to figure out what she was saying. 

“Nothing. I just miss her.” Boscha nodded along. “We had such a good time at Grom. Every year. Do you remember the tree?” Everyone remembered the tree. It was the most exciting Grom fight Boscha had ever seen. Amity managed to place herself on her bed. “I’m never going to get that back. I know I need to just move on, but I can’t.”

“There, there?” Boscha patted her back. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do.”

Amity giggled softly through her tears. “It’s fine. I don’t need you to say anything. I’ll get over it.”

“But you shouldn’t.” Boscha remembered thinking. She didn’t know what she was thinking then, and now all she could do was wish she had said it. Instead she had just sat there silently. After minutes, though it felt like hours to Boscha, Amity managed to pull herself together.

“Sorry about that. I’m fine now.” Amity stood up and smiled as if everything was alright, and she was the perfect little girl again. “Everyone’s probably waiting for us.”

“Mittens. Scary girl.” Ed twirled a key around his finger. “I’m your ride.”  
“Why you?” Amity said, confused and mockingly.  
“Mom is off doing important business. She wanted me to tell you she would fly you, but she’s off grabbing power in the palace. Or something like that. No clue where Dad is, and Em will get us all killed. So I’m all that’s left.”  
“Cool.” Amity shrugged. Her Mother usually flew her to Grom. It was one of very few times they seemed to enjoy each other’s presence. Odalia threatening Luz after dropping Amity off was as close as the Blight family got to normal.  
“Don’t die, or whatever.” Ed said as he dropped them off at school. “Stay in drugs, do school.”

The gymnasium was full, packed enough that it felt like they could barely breathe. Boscha stood at the door, paralyzed by the scale of everything. All her friends melted into the crowd leaving her finding something to do. She looked around and next to her was Amity, who looked equally scared.

“I don’t know what to do.” Boscha shrugged. She picked a wall and stuck to it. Amity stuck to her. They stood waiting for something to happen. 

Skara tore over to them, dragging her date behind her. “Hey… How are you? Whatcha doing?”

“We just got here.” Boscha responded. She tilted her head at Skara, “Have you been drinking the punch? The one that’s always spiked.”

“Me?” Skara responded, looking hurt and flush. “Never.” She looked around and whispered, “A little bit. Shhhhh.” 

“Are you gonna be okay?” Boscha asked. Secretly, she wanted Skara to say yes. She did not feel like babysitting tonight.

“Pshht. I got Brain. Brian. Burn. Him.” She pointed at her date, who waved awkwardly. Boscha waved back. “Come on. Let’s go dancing Brain.”

Boscha breathed a sigh of relief as her friend ran off. Why was she like this now? She used to love Grom. She took the time to remember what she used to be like. Why did she like it? She remembered standing at the center of the floor, looking smugly out at everyone. She was so much better than everyone else. But she didn’t want that now. Then it was exactly what made her happy, but now it felt like she would be miserable if she tried it. “Amity. What do you want to do?”

Amity shook her head. She was breathing pretty heavy and was holding her chest. “I think I’m going to go for a walk for a second. It feels… It’s too much right now.”

Boscha nodded. At least right now she could do something for her friend. She grabbed Amity’s hand and placed herself in front of her. She helped her swim through the mass of people and escape out the front door. “Call me if you need me, yea?”

Amity just nodded. She smiled and slipped out into the forest surrounding the school. Now what?

Scanning the wall, she saw other people doing the same thing as her. Curious, she squeezed over, and then she saw them.

Gus and Willow were sitting on the bleachers talking lazily. Boscha tried to escape, but couldn’t find her way through the wall of people. Then Willow looked over. Boscha flushed red with fear. It was like all the guilt she had been storing for all the horrible things she had done to these two overflowed. She could feel Willow’s judgement and hatred. 

Then she smiled. Willow suddenly had a small, inviting smile on her face. Boscha took a step towards them, and then realized she must be imagining it. Willow beckoned with her hand.

Boscha slowly walked over to her.

“Hi. I’m Willow. This is Gus.”  
“I’m Boscha..” She replied uneasily.  
“I know.” Willow said with a laugh. “Sit down.” She slid over and patted a seat. Boscha sat down again. This all felt like it was leading somewhere scary.

Willow laughed. “Don’t be scared. You were alone. It’s what Luz would have done.”  
“Oh. I didn’t really know her.”  
“Yes, I remember. You spent most of your time bullying us.” Boscha turned away in panic and tried to find an appropriate response. “Don’t worry. If you aren’t doing it now, We’ll give you a chance.” Boscha relaxed the tiniest bit.

“Targets acquired. Oh wait. Can we talk about the plan?” Gus said.

“I don’t know. Do you want in?” Willow asked with a sly smile. Boscha nodded cautiously. “Do you see those two?” She pointed at a pair of small looking kids awkwardly dancing near each other. One in a blue dress with green hair and one in a suit with a purple tie. “They’re some of the kids I’m supposed to tutor. And they have it bad for each other. But both of them are too shy to make a move. So we’re gonna make it for them.”

“Okay. What’s the plan?”

“That’s the most fun part. I don’t know. We’re gonna figure it out as we go.” Gus manifested a paper and pencils and they got to work drafting up their scheme.

“This is the stupidest plan I’ve ever seen.”  
“It’s really more of a scheme.”  
“And that’s what makes it so fun.”

Willow and Boscha made their way to the dance floor, eyes locked on target. Gus headed over the DJ. Boscha and Willow got ready.

Finally the song changed to something slow. “Ready?”  
“Um… I don’t know how to dance…”  
“Now you tell me?” Willow smiled. “All part of the fun, I guess. Follow me. Keep your eyes up, you gotta watch them.”

Willow took Boscha’s hands and started to sway. “Where are they?”  
“Purple one is trying to escape.” Boscha said hushedly. Willow moved them over, blocking the purple child’s exit plan.   
“Nice work.” Slowly, they blocked and plotted themselves creeping the purple and green children closer and closer.

“While we have a second.” Willow whispered. “What’s been going on with you?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“You know. You haven’t said a single mean thing to me in weeks. It’s weird. I’m not sure if I like it or not.”  
“I don’t know.” She looked at her feet. “It’s like… I figured out I’m missing something. You know how I’m friends with Skara?” Willow nodded. “I realize I didn’t care about them. And they didn’t care about me. It scared me.”  
“So you actually are trying to do something? I’m impressed.”  
“Thank you.”  
“I remember Amity going through that. It’s not easy. But I think I speak for everyone when I say thank you.”  
Boscha could feel herself blushing. Not out of embarrassment. It was embarrassment, but it felt rosier. She tried to say something, but found it was easier to just keep dancing. “How’s our couple doing?”  
“I haven’t checked. Let me-”

She was cut off by a loud crashing noise. Everyone froze to look over. Skara stumbled up. “I’m good. I’m goooood” She fell over again. She had knocked the table over. Boscha knew she had to help. She turned to look at her dance partner. “I think I should… You know… It was nice though.”

“Yea, yea. Go care about your friend.”

Boscha raced over and helped Skara up.

“Come on. We’re going home.”  
“No fun. Why’re you doing this?”  
“Honestly? Because it’s just better than not. Come one. On your feet.”

\--

Silently, Boscha moved through the halls of the castle with a box of donuts under her arm. She had learned to move like a ghost, impossible to spot. Suddenly, she felt someone following her. She slowly placed the box on the ground. This may be someone or something that knew more than she could let get out. She heard footsteps approaching quickly. Already low to the ground, she armed herself with a bottle of something she had on her. She swung around and got ready to throw it at her attacker

“Boscha, Wait!” Someone yelled, sounding out of breath.

It was Skara. “What are you doing?” Boscha asked, kicking her box out of the way and tucking her potion away. “You scared me.”

“I was- hoo- I was following you. I wanted to ask you something.”  
“Oh. Okay. What’s up then?  
“I don’t want to sound crazy, but I feel like you’re avoiding me.”

Uh oh. Skara was right. Absolutely. Boscha didn’t like keeping secrets from her, but this was non-negotiable, and she didn’t feel bad about it. She just never wanted to find out how Skara would treat her knowing Boscha was working with their enemy, or that she had lied to her, or that she was secretly undermining her. 

“So, Am I? Crazy?”  
“No! I mean, I’m not avoiding you, it’s just Um…” Um… (Loading please wait.)  
“Was it something I did? Why are you mad at me?”  
“I’m not, I swear.”  
“Okay.” Skara stood there awkwardly, hoping for some help from her best friend.

“I- I’ll tell you later, okay? You don’t have to know this. Right now, I have something really important I have to deal with, so can we do this later?”

“Fine, okay.” Skara said, openly upset.  
“Great. See you soon.” Boscha grabbed her box and scurried off as Skara watched sadly. Boscha seemed to be backsliding, returning to the worst version of herself. And she didn’t know why.

\--  
“You are my ANGEL!” Luz shrieked when Boscha appeared in her cell bloc with her box of donuts. “What do we have?”

“I don’t know. Appleblood, Scaryberry, I’m not sure about that one.” Luz was already eating one of the unknown ones. Boscha hoped it wasn’t something poisonous, or deadly. She placed the box down in Luz’s cell and sat on the floor.

“It tastes like pink.” Luz looked up and noticed her friend’s general demeanor. “What’s wrong? You look all rainy.”

“I’ve got a problem. It doesn’t matter though.” She pulled a deck of cards from her pocket. “Wanna play?”

“I do.” Luz said suspiciously. “But I’m not letting you get away with not talking. Spill.”

“Fine, fine.” Boscha responded, dealing each of them seven cards. “My life has been really weird lately. I just realized how weird it is to work for people who are actively trying to kill my girlfriend. And me, if I think about it.”

“Really? I feel like that would be the kind of thing that sticks out in your head. I mean, really you're a spy though right? So you just are kind of taking their money.”

“Kind of I guess. But I am friends with some of them, for real. Skara’s been with me for forever now, same with Amelia, and Amity. She’s harder to figure out. But I don’t like lying to them, usually. Wild card.”

“Hm.” Luz responded, thinking of Boscha’s problem while also watching their game. Boscha was making a very serious push. “I’m gonna move this baby over here then.” Luz said, placing a small stack of four cards opposite Boscha’s. “Look, I can’t give relationship advice. My girlfriend threw me in a prison. But, you’re trying to be two people at once, and that’s obviously impossible. You’ve gotta be honest with what you’re doing.”

“I thought you weren’t going to give me advice.” Boscha grumbled happily.

“I contain multitudes.” Luz responded quickly, with a sly smile. “How’s things with Willow?”

Boscha’s face lit up. “Perfect. Just perfect. Actually really, really good.” She paused and leaned her head against the jail bars. 

“It’s your turn.” Luz said, snapping her back to reality. “I’m glad, though. You seem really happy. Never would have guessed it.” Luz grabbed another donut and through mouthfuls, added, “You two were so different when I left.”

“Stop that. You’re disgusting.” Boscha threw a napkin at Luz. “You can wait until you're done eating to talk, honestly.”

“Never mind. You’re exactly the same.”  
“Shut up. Willow’s always been the sweetest being in this hellhole. I only just figured out how badly I was missing out.”  
“You know, I met her when she tried to kill me.”  
“I didn’t know that. And it doesn’t matter.”  
“Okay.” Luz threw down a stack of five cards. “You lose by the way. Or should I say, you Luz.”

Boscha stared at the board, looking for a way out. “I want you to know I hate you.”

“Yea, but you're stuck with me.” Luz said with a smile and a laugh. “Play again?” 

Boscha grumbled and nodded. “Yea. There are worse people to be stuck with, I guess.” Boscha paused, wondering if she should say what she needed to next. “You know, I think Amity is still pretty broken up about what she did to you. She isn’t gone, if you’re worried about that.”

“Thanks. But. I don’t know. It’s my fault I’m here, because I trusted her.”  
“I’m not saying you can trust her, but she’s not gone.”

Luz nodded. “I can work with that.”

They played for Boscha’s lunch break, until she had to leave. Boscha gave Luz a hug.

“But I’ll be back.”  
“And you better have my money.”  
“Over my dead body.”

\-- “What’s wrong? Everything, man. But it’s all good.”--

Skara peeked around the corner, weirdly excited to see Boscha. She found Boscha digging through her locker. “You good? You look a little insane.”

Boscha turned quickly. “I’m fine. Did you see a green piece of paper around?” Skara shook her head. “Oh. Cool.”

“Are you okay?”  
“Yea, yea. Just go away.” Boscha responded, waving her hand.  
“What is on the paper? Why are you so worried?”   
“Nothing important. It’s fine. Just go away.”

Boscha kept shoving things through her locker.

“Are you looking for this?” Boscha froze. Turning her head, she saw a green haired girl, with a sick grin. Slowly, she unfolded the paper.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Willow responded. “Ahem. Dear Willow.” She cleared her throat. 

Boscha ran. She burst into a classroom, where no one was around and sat down, leaning her back against the wall, and took deep breaths. 

“I don’t see how that’s gonna help you.” The green girl stood above her, piercing her with her eyes. “Take all the time you want, it doesn’t change anything. I’ll never love you back. You tortured me. Made me feel weak, useless. It was all projection, wasn’t it?”

She leaned in, eyes glowing a sickly shade of green. Boscha tucked herself into a ball as if she could protect herself that way.

“Don’t worry. Soon enough, your sick, twisted little soul will take over again, and you won’t even care.” She pulled her out of her ball and looked into her eyes. Still grinning, she said, “You can pretend all you want, but no one changes. Least of all you. You don’t get to.”

“You-” Boscha stammered out. She drove herself up to face her. “You don’t get to choose what I am.” 

“Don’t I? Look inside yourself.” Boscha blinked for a second and red eyes flashed back at her. “You are bitter, resentful, mean-spirited, and you will never stop being those things.”

Boscha tried to find words to fight back. She felt a tension scrounge up her body. She wanted to scream, or fight back or bite. But instead, her body pumped her eyes full of tears.

All she could do was cry.

“Boscha?” A voice called from the doorway. “Hey! Hey… You’re okay.” Boscha became aware of herself again. She was a clump on the floor of a classroom. Surrounding her in a hug was Willow. The real Willow.

“What- What happened?”  
“I think they’re called panic attacks. Luz used to have them.” Boscha pulled herself up to a sit, and Willow let her go, leaving them two confused people sitting next to each other.

“Oh. It felt like a hallucination. I thought you had found-” Boscha stopped herself.

“This?” Willow was holding up the piece of paper, but this time it was real. Boscha thought she was about to melt. “I think it’s sweet. A bit brief, but sweet.” 

At this moment, Boscha was trying to figure out how to pull her head into her body, like a turtle. “And I think you used the wrong it’s. But.” Willow scooched nearer to her. “I’m glad you did this. It makes it a lot easier for me to do this.” Willow leaned over and placed a quick, delicate kiss on Boscha’s cheek. Before Boscha could respond, Willow was already standing up. “We have to get to class now.”

“You can’t just leave like that! That’s illegal or something.”

Willow placed a finger on her cheek and said, “Can’t I?”  
And then she was gone.

\--

After knocking on the lab door and waiting five minutes, Boscha realized something crucially important: Skara has a sound proof lab. She hesitated a second before pushing open the door.   
Skara reacted by swinging her guitar at Boscha.

“Aaaa!” Boscha doged back. “It’s just me.”  
“Sorry. Not used to getting visitors.  
“I mean, I tried knocking. It didn’t really work.”  
“Yea. That’s how soundproofing works. Whatcha doing here?” Skara kicked back into her stool, placed in the center of the room.

“I just wanted to check in, see how you were doing.” Boscha said, leaning uncomfortably against the wall, then standing back up immediately. She still wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to touch the egg carton walls or not.

“Hm” Skara did a swivel on her stool. “I’ve known you for almost fifteen years now. Right?” Boscha nodded, not really liking where this was going. “Don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you just check in, for real.”

“I don’t think I-”

“Wait.” Skara continued “Usually, I just come to you with my problems. You never come to me. But you actually listen most of the time, which is nice, and you never say no, which is very nice. I’m going to assume you have something you want to tell me, right? So just say it. I don’t like it when you act like this. Not yourself.”

“You’re right.” Boscha paused to collect her thoughts. “I’ve been lying to you. And I can’t tell you why, and I can’t tell you why I can’t. It’s just no, it wouldn’t work. But you should know, it’s not anything you did, and it’s not anything you can control. So if I act weird that’s why.”

Skara looked back at her unconvinced. “Does this have to do with your secret girlfriend?”

“Not everything- actually, it does.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with you. Promise me you have it under control.”  
“I do. I know I do.”  
“Because we’re worried for you. We don’t want the old you to come back, you know what I mean?”  
“I know what you mean. You feel okay then?” Skara nodded. “Okay. okay. Then we’re going”

Boscha pulled Skara out of her lab. “Where are we going? What are we doing?”

“I got some of the powder I discovered in school” It turns out if you scrape the residue off the bottom of the cauldron after making a fire resistance potion, you end up with a super delicate explosive. Very useful for fireworks. “I was going to set off some fireworks, like old times, if you want to come.”

Skara rolled her eyes. “As if I’d ever say no.”

\-- 

“I’m home! Willow? Oh damn.” She walked in to find Willow planted faced down on the bed. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh. Well if you say so.” She responded, rolling her eyes. Boscha sat down next to Willow and lifted her head up. “Talk to me.”

“Everyone’s mad. I was supposed to bring Luz home, and I failed.”

“Well, that’s stupid.” Boscha responded quickly. “She made her own decision. They should take it out on her, not you.”

Willow flipped over. “Well, she isn’t here.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. You all should really just Ow!” Willow smacked her on the back of the head with a pillow. “What was that for?”

Willow shrugged. She leaned her head on Boscha’s shoulder. Boscha knew when to be quiet. She leaned in and placed a kiss on her head, and whispered, “What do you want to do?”

“Nothing, Sunshine. Nothing.”

Boscha nodded. “You know, if I were in charge…”

“Shut up!” Willow responded while giggling. Boscha smiled. It was exactly what she had planned.

\--

Slowly, a shadow crept up the prison walls. Slowly, it watched the world around it and slowly it considered it’s actions.

Luz watched it creeping about. It was hard to see through the door that led to her cell, but clearly something was moving out there.

Suddenly, in an outline in the door, is a figure, cloaked and hard to make out. They’re holding a block of some sort. They take a step in, pause and run away. She looks down, and scolds herself for even trying. Luz didn’t need anything to read. She probably didn’t care about Azura books anymore.

“Goodbye Amity.” Luz hummed to herself. “I miss you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!  
> I am going into hibernation for the winter.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed.


End file.
